15/02/2026
Loch Wood Community Woodland near Lesmahagow is one of the first places in Scotland to receive Nature30 status - recognition for its ecological value and its role in reversing biodiversity loss.
It’s also a place where 200 children a week come to learn, explore, and grow in confidence. The charity that runs the site has spent years building this programme, supported in part by funding from renewable energy developers who claimed to value community and the environment.
And now that same woodland is facing the prospect of being surrounded by a 100MW solar farm and a 100MW battery storage facility — an industrial energy complex on a scale entirely at odds with the woodland’s purpose.
The proposal was lodged by Green Switch Capital, a company that began as a small UK outfit **, briefly took investment from Ignis Energy Europe, and is now controlled by the French multinational Qair. Another local space, another community asset, placed in the path of a corporate energy pipeline.
Local people have not been silent.
BECA (Blackwood Estate Community Association) has made strong, detailed submissions — including the revelation that the archaeological report submitted with the application was produced by a Qair-owned subsidiary, presented as if it were an independent assessment. That alone raises serious questions about transparency and scrutiny.
They are not alone.
The Woodland Trust has objected, citing the woodland’s ecological importance and the incompatibility of industrial development with a Nature30 site.
And NatureScot has made its position clear. Their submission states that disturbance to badgers during construction is unavoidable, meaning a protected-species licence and a full badger plan would be required before any determination.
They raise similarly serious concerns about bats, and they highlight a glaring omission: the developer has not provided the required information on raptors or wintering birds, nor justified the absence of field surveys. In other words, the ecological assessment is incomplete.
Parents are already saying they would no longer feel safe sending their children. The charity fears closure. Over 700 people have objected.
This is the real tension in Scotland’s energy transition:
Nature30 on paper, industrialisation on the ground.
Community wellbeing vs. speculative infrastructure.
Biodiversity pledges vs. the reality of planning decisions.
If even a Nature30 woodland — a place explicitly recognised for its ecological importance — can be put under threat, for an industrial energy hub, what does “protection” actually mean?
** We've spent most of the day sorting out a major tech problem - success - but it's put back another post we intended to do this afternoon on Green Switch, but we will do this tomorrow.
