When a project is not on your doorstep, but may still affect the wider system.
Communities are often asked to respond to major infrastructure in fragments: one consultation for a hub, another for a landfall, another for an overhead line, another for a battery project or data centre. This guide helps people make careful, honest and useful comments when a project is not strictly local to them, but may still be connected to the place they live.
Important note: This page is general public-participation guidance, not legal advice. It is intended to help people understand how to make relevant, evidence-led comments. If you need advice about your own legal position, land rights, compensation, statutory notices or formal proceedings, please seek independent advice.
You do not have to pretend to be local to a project in order to raise a legitimate wider-system concern.
The key is to be honest about your interest. Say whether you are directly affected, indirectly affected, responding as a neighbouring or linked community, or commenting because of a wider public-interest issue such as cumulative impact, environmental protection, grid dependency, water, roads, climate, biodiversity, community wealth or public trust.
Different deadlines do not mean separate realities.
Some projects are local in geography but strategic in effect. A substation, overhead line, landfall, battery storage scheme, data centre or large energy project may affect places beyond its immediate boundary through grid dependency, cumulative impact, construction traffic, water catchments, biodiversity corridors, landscape setting, housing pressure, community benefit, supply chains or precedent.
Scottish planning guidance recognises that legitimate public interest in planning can extend beyond those most directly affected to a wider community interest in the wise development of the local environment.
That does not mean every comment will carry equal weight. It means comments are stronger when they explain the connection clearly and focus on relevant planning, environmental or public-interest issues.
This is usually run by the developer before a formal application is submitted.
Best use: ask what is still open to change, request missing maps, raise alternatives, record local evidence and ask how linked projects will be assessed together.
This is the formal stage where a council, Scottish Ministers or another consenting body considers an application.
Best use: submit a clear representation using the official reference number, deadline and portal or email route. Focus on relevant planning and environmental matters.
The Scottish Government Energy Consents Unit handles major electricity infrastructure such as larger generation projects and overhead power lines.
Best use: use the ECU portal for live consultations where available, quote the ECU reference and keep comments evidence-led.
Once a case is with DPEA, routes may be narrower and more procedural.
Best use: quote the case reference and ask the case team whether late written material, observer attendance or correspondence-list inclusion is still possible.
Be upfront. That makes the comment more credible.
I am not commenting as an immediate neighbour of this project. I am commenting as an affected / interested member of a linked community because this proposal may interact with wider infrastructure affecting our area.
I ask that my comments are considered in relation to cumulative impact, strategic dependency, public benefit, environmental protection and the need for communities to be shown the full connected picture.
This is not “not in our backyard”. It is: stop treating everyone’s backyard as spare land.
Subject: Feedback on [project name] — request for whole-system assessment
Dear [developer / consultation team],
I am responding to the consultation on [project name]. I am not writing as an immediate neighbour of the proposal, but as a member of a community which may be affected by linked infrastructure and cumulative impacts.
Please confirm what aspects of the proposal remain genuinely open to change, including site selection, routeing, technology choices, mitigation, associated infrastructure and project timing.
Please also explain how this proposal connects to other live or reasonably foreseeable projects, including substations, overhead lines, battery storage, private wire, grid connections, data centres, access works and construction compounds.
Communities should not be asked to respond to one fragment at a time. The whole picture should be published clearly before decisions harden.
Yours faithfully,
[Name]
Subject: Representation on [application reference] — cumulative and linked infrastructure concerns
Dear [planning authority / ECU / case team],
Please accept this as a representation on [project name / reference].
I am not an immediate neighbour of the application site, but I am commenting because the proposal may form part of a wider infrastructure system affecting neighbouring or connected communities.
I ask the decision-maker to consider whether the application has properly assessed cumulative impacts, associated infrastructure, alternatives, environmental effects, community benefit, public-interest need and strategic dependency with other live or reasonably foreseeable projects.
Please ensure the full connected infrastructure picture is available to affected communities before any decision is made.
Yours faithfully,
[Name]
This guide is especially relevant where projects may connect to, enable, justify or strengthen the case for the proposed Strathbogie Hub, including Shetland HVDC Link 2, the Beauly–Blackhillock–New Deer–Peterhead 400kV OHL, substations, battery storage, private-wire infrastructure, energy parks, data centres or other major energy demand.
The campaign will continue to label evidence carefully:
If you agree that communities need full information, cumulative assessment, fair process and meaningful participation before decisions harden, please support and share the petition.