Island leaders say Scotland’s renewable energy ambitions will stall unless investment catches up with the infrastructure deficit facing Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.

‘Opportunity’ is the word that instinctively comes to mind when we think about our three island groups. Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles currently stand to benefit from a series of shared opportunities which have never been as aligned as they are today. These include all the obvious things you might expect when you think about our islands - tourism including our burgeoning cruise industries, food and drink, including whisky and seafood, and our environments, languages and cultures. These are highly significant attributes around which our local economies pivot.

However the industrial development which is the subject of more debate than perhaps any other, is offshore wind. Around one-third of ScotWind, the first round of Scotland’s offshore wind leasing, is in the territorial waters of our islands. That’s around 10GW of clean energy, enough to power every home in Scotland three times over.

The Scottish Government has been clear about its ambition for Scotland to be a global leader in clean, secure energy, and it is an ambition we share. However, for us as leaders on our islands, it is more complicated. Indeed, many of the islanders we represent are highly sceptical - they see the costs and disruption of wind development but have trouble seeing the benefits.

Given that our islanders suffer from the highest energy bills anywhere in the country, their position is understandable. Local unease, and in many communities outright anger - is fuelled by the fact that our islands’ natural capital has already delivered hundreds of millions of pounds to the Scottish........

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