On a small croft in the shadow of Ben Tongue, a 302-metre high mountain in the Scottish Highlands, Ian and Rachel Broughton lead a quiet life, growing produce and relishing the calm of their rural haven. But changes are afoot.
The retired couple are horrified by plans for a radar station for the Sutherland Spaceport, one of the UK’s first spaceports, on the summit of the mountain, with a new service road that will skirt within metres of their 170-year-old stone cottage.
“We moved here more than 10 years ago because we wanted to live the dream, to be self-reliant in a remote and quiet place, surrounded by nature,” said Rachel. “The radar station will bring traffic and plant machinery, literally on top of us. Ian and I feel isolated and helpless, we’re in a David and Goliath-style battle.”
Construction of the spaceport in the A’ Mhòine peninsula is due to finish this year. It plans to launch the UK mainland’s first vertical rockets, carrying small satellites into orbit to observe Earth, and gather data to monitor and address the effects of climate change.
A planning application for the spaceport was first submitted to Highland council in 2020 and received more than 450 objections, compared to more than 100 in support, before the council approved it.
Concerns had been raised over the spaceport’s location on peat bog, a natural reservoir for harmful greenhouse gases. The site borders the Flow Country, the largest expanse of blanket bog in Europe that last month was designated as a world heritage site by Unesco for its diverse ecosystems and peatlands. The spaceport owner, Orbex, has installed a “floating road”, so as to not disturb the hydrology of underlying peatland.
The project has won the support of many in the community of Tongue and Melness, which has a population of less than 700, including the Melness Crofters’ Estate (MCE) and about 60 crofters who own a share of its 10,000 acres, who will benefit by leasing part of their land.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), the development agency, has said the spaceport could also support about 250 new employment opportunities in the region, including 40 jobs in Sutherland and Caithness.
But the Broughtons and other locals are concerned about plans to move the facility’s antenna park to the summit of Ben Tongue. Orbex announced last year that it was seeking permission to change the layout of the site, and says the mountain is the best location to monitor 19m-tall rockets that will be launched five miles away at the spaceport.
Its proposal is expected to be heard by the Highland council’s north planning applications committee this month. It already has the support of the Tongue, Melness and Skerray community council, and has so far received seven objections.
Critics argue the antenna park risks harming the landscape and generating traffic, noise and light pollution. One local resident in a submission to Highland council described it as “an act of vandalism”.
Danish billionaire and local estate owner Anders Holch Povlsen, who runs the conservation and ecotourism company Wildland, is among those who have raised concerns.
The Broughtons have accused Orbex of “running roughshod” over their concerns, which Orbex strongly denies. “I am very angry at the way big business pushes the ‘little people’ around or ignores them and gets away with it,” Rachel said. They fear there will be “much more traffic than is being implied”, she added.
Orbex, which was not involved with the spaceport until 2022, said traffic up and down Ben Tongue would not be daily. A planning condition for the spaceport limits launch days to 12 a year, and any traffic would “primarily coincide” with these dates.
A couple who left Melness due to “unrest” caused by the spaceport, who wished to remain anonymous, said last week: “It is an emotional subject for many and we miss our lives that we had just started there very much.”
Blair Sandison, 62, a retired energy industry executive and former Melness resident who owns a house in the area, said he received “lots of invective” for questioning the spaceport. “I can deal with that but for others who have faced a backlash for expressing an opinion, the easiest thing for them to do is pack up and leave. That’s just wrong,” he said.
Dorothy Pritchard, chairwoman of MCE, said: “I genuinely believe that the spaceport has the support of the vast majority of the local community. There’s always going to be different opinions but if anybody has faced abuse, that is not acceptable and MCE certainly does not condone that.”
Under the terms of a 75-year lease, the MCE stands to receive at least £5.25m (£70,000 a year), split equally between the estate – for improvements such as new social housing – and tenant crofters, whose share will be based on their number of livestock.
There could be a much larger windfall under a clause that the estate receives 2% of launch fees a year or £30,000, whichever is the higher. A 2023 analysis of Orbex by moontomars, an online site, suggested the cost of each rocket launch could be up to £5m.
Last week, Orbex said a new road would be accessed from a croft that neighbours the Broughtons’ and will join an existing road which already runs through their land.
A spokesperson added: “Any planning application creates differences of opinion and we welcome everyone’s views surrounding the proposed changes to the spaceport. We have been consulting with the local community continuously for many years and have found many residents to be in support of our plans. We have been a local employer for several years now and take seriously our responsibility to balance local economic needs with wider environmental and community concerns.”
HIE said: “HIE and Orbex recognise the importance of community engagement and have provided regular community engagement sessions since the start of the project. Our experience is that the vast majority of the local community are in favour of the development.”
