Camilty Wind Farm - Partnerships for Renewables

Camilty Wind Farm
• Urban
9.3.54 The eight generic landscape character types within the study area can be further broken
down to identify individual landscape character areas. Table 9.12 below describes the 26
specific Landscape Character Areas within the 35 km Study Area where the proposed wind
farm will be visible (according to the ZTV maps produced). These areas are assessed in
paragraphs 9.5.4 to 9.5.11 and 9.5.44 to 9.5.60. Figure 9.9 illustrates the combined
Character areas.
Table 9.12 Landscape Character Types and Areas
LCT/LCA
Landscape Character Area - Description and extent within the study area
UPLAND FRINGES TYPES
North West
Pentland
Fringe
(contains the
proposal site)
Prominent
Isolated
Hills – Tinto
Hills
Foothills –
Tinto Hills
Rolling
Farmland -
Lanark
This large-scale landscape sweeps along the western parts of the Pentland Hills.
Characterised by broad gentle slopes, the ground occasionally swells into small hills
where igneous extrusions have been exposed through the sedimentary bedrock. The
valleys of many small streams cut shallow courses through the slopes.
The area is distinguished by a number of reservoirs of varying scale and prominence,
the largest being Cobbinshaw, Harperrig, and Crosswood in the west, and Threipmuir
and Harlaw further east.
Westwards from Harperrig Reservoir, which feeds the infant Water of Leith in its open,
flat bottomed valley, both mature and more recently-planted coniferous plantations are
the dominant land cover, their angularity occasionally softened by broadleaved edges.
Interspersed with the plantations of the upper slopes, remnant heather moorland and
poor-quality rough grassland are dotted with marshy, rush-stippled depressions. The
remaining hill-slopes are clothed with stretches of improved grassland, divided into a
large-scale field pattern by hedgerows, fences and numerous mixed and coniferous
shelterbelts. Throughout the more open areas of rougher pasture, hedgerow trees and
shelterbelts are often over-mature remnants and walls are gappy. However, significant
areas of new shelterbelt planting have occurred across the lower ground. The Harbum
and West Harwood area has a notable concentration of shelterbelts.
Contrasting with the smooth landform, several active and disused quarries at the
western end of the area form craggy visual intrusions.
The simple landscape of reservoirs, grassland and plantations across the higher
ground is modified by industrial development, transport corridors and pylon lines to the
north and west. Backed by the dominant ridgeline of the Pentland Hills, views are
focused northwards across the gentle smooth slopes towards the settled lowlands.
A number of hills form particular landmarks, Tinto Hill is perhaps the best known and
most prominent of these, rising to over 700 metres on the western side of the Clyde.
Further east, the Black Mount rises to over 520 metres, forming an elongated hill on
the same orientation as the Southern Uplands Fault. Smaller hills are also significant.
Quothquan Law (325 m) is an isolated hill on the eastern side of the Clyde, mirrored
by the lower Castle Hill (261 m) to the south.
The Foothills form the transition between the Southern Uplands and the Plateau
Moorlands and Plateau Farmlands. They lie to the north west of the Southern Uplands
Fault. The transition to neighbouring areas of plateau moorland and farmland is very
gentle. A larger number of minor valleys cuts into the foothills, creating a dissected
landform of valleys between rounded ridges summits. Frequently these have a slightly
conical form with long shoulder slopes.
An undulating upland fringe landscape of large-scale fields, with mixed arable and
pastoral land use. This rather diverse landscape type is found on the margins of the
Tweed Lowlands, and also in a broad synclinal depression which forms a fringe of the
Midland Valley, lying between the Southern Upland Fault and the Pentland Hills. It is
distinguished by a characteristic topography of rolling undulations, becoming steeper
and more pronounced towards the uplands and more gentle at the lowland fringes.
March 2013 9-29 ES Chapter 9
Landscape and Visual
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