A senior Church of Scotland convener today called on the Scottish Government to dismiss an application for a coal-fired power station in Ayrshire.

Reverend Ian Galloway, convener of the Kirk’s Church and Society Council, said if Ayrshire Power’s proposals for Hunterston were approved Holyrood’s ambitious climate change targets would be totally discredited.

The congregation at Fairlie Parish Church, who live close to the site of the proposed power station, have been worried about the implications for some time.

Mr Galloway said: "This proposal represents the first real challenge for the Scottish Government’s much applauded climate change legislation which was agreed by the Scottish Parliament last year.

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"The Church of Scotland, as part of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, strongly supported the Climate Change Bill in its passage through the Scottish Parliament.

"The new application rests on the assumption that the new power station would use carbon capture and storage to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere but this technology is still in its infancy and has never been proven at the scale required to work effectively in a power station of this size."

He continued: "Unless carbon capture can be made to work effectively and quickly the new power station would seriously compromise the targets included in the bill and put the credibility of Scotland’s world leading position in doubt.

"For this reason we can only express our great concern about the wisdom of this application and call upon the Scottish Government to do nothing that put its climate change targets at risk."

(GK)