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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Tom Allan

Country diary: A new chapter for these old hills

A view of the Pines Burn windfarm under construction.
A view of the Pines Burn windfarm under construction. Photograph: Tom Allan

From the low outcrop of grey sandstone, I get my first glimpse of the new turbines. Five kilometres from the hill I’m climbing, construction is under way on 11 turbines at Pines Burn, not far from the town of Hawick.

The structures rise above the sparsely populated Borders landscape like white pillars from the space age. The tallest is 149 metres high. They dwarf everything around them: the rough-grazed hill, the ranks of sitka spruce plantation.

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