During the Second World War the North of Scotland
Hydro Electric Board (NOSHEB) was formed. It
was championed by Tom Johnston, the then
Secretary of State for Scotland who dreamt it
would pave the way for great economic development
in the Highlands. In the next two decades many
schemes were built before it was finally accepted
in the 1960s that new hydro schemes were uneconomic as the real price of electricity fell.
In the event the degree of economic development hoped for did not materialise but there was a significant social benefit by bringing power to far flung Highland communities. This was the Hydro Board's main contribution.
However, while in the north of Scotland the hydro schemes were designed to provide electricity for Highland communities, those in the south were not. Rather they were intended to sell electricity to central Scotland in order to offset the losses which the non-profit making Hydro Board envisaged making by supplying Highland communities further north.
|
|
The
purpose of the Tummel-Garry scheme, for example, was clearly stated in the Explanatory Memorandum (Cmd. 6660, 1945):
“The intended customers for the energy to
be obtained from the Tummel-Garry Scheme are the
Central Electricity Board for the Central Scotland
Grid and two authorised undertakers within the
Highland area – the Grampian Electricity
Supply Company and the Corporation of Aberdeen.
No direct or immediate benefit to local consumers
in the area of the Tummel-Garry Scheme is contemplated”.
Some have questioned the economic rationale of the Hydro Board as the costly schemes produced a modest amount of electricity at a time when Britain had lost much of its wealth owing to the War.
Given the Tummel-Garry scheme was not even necessary to supply local communities it begs the question as to whether it really was necessary at all or whether cheaper forms of supply to central Scotland would have proved economically more beneficial to the country as a whole.
|
|
The electricity produced by the Tummel-Garry scheme was intended for sale to the towns and cities in lowland Scotland as opposed to Highland communities
|
