The village of Beauly, near Inverness, marks the starting point of what was once Britain’s largest and most controversial power grid project: a 137-mile electricity superhighway from the quiet Highlands village to a large substation in Denny near Falkirk. The power line brings renewable energy generated by wind farms in the north to the electricity grids in Scotland’s central belt – but it also ignited a bitter feud between opposing green groups. The power line was approved in 2010 after Scotland’s longest and most expensive inquiry; with some welcoming the project as a crucial building block in Scottish green energy targets and others fiercely opposing the “ ” against the Highlands’ most beautiful scenery.
Today, the Beauly-Denny overhead line serves as a preview for the impact that these giant infrastructure projects may have on local communities across the country as Britain embarks on one of the largest rollouts yet of power cables, overhead lines and pylons. In a for the industry body Scottish Renewables, economists at the consultancy BiGGAR Economics said fears that the power line would cause irreversible damage to the beauty of the Highlands might have been unfounded. An analysis of property sales since the line began operating in 2015 showed property price trends along its route mirrored those of the wider local authorities and appeared to be influenced by wider macroeconomic factors rather than the appearance of new power lines.
In Beauly, house prices .