Press release 02/10/2013

£20,000 appeal launched on Crowdfunder

Sustainable Shetland is launching a nationwide campaign to raise funds for their Judicial Review into the Scottish Ministers’ decision to grant consent for the Viking Energy Windfarm.

The campaign, which is being launched on Friday 17th January, is being operated entirely online through Crowdfunder.co.uk

Crowdfunding is an website which allows community groups and individuals to raise funds for a particular cause through a system of pledges. Each cause has a target and a time limit, and supporters are asked to pledge funds to reach the total. If the total is reached, the cause receives the money, if not, the supporters are refunded in full. Incentives to support the cause are given, with a variety of rewards being offered to supporters for different pledge amounts. Crowdfunder campaigns are spread by word of mouth but primarily through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, allowing the cause to reach a large number of people through a variety of networks across the country.

The Sustainable Shetland campaign aims to raise £20,000 over an eight week period to help fund Sustainable Shetland’s challenge to the Scottish Ministers’ appeal against the decision of Lady Clark of Calton in September 2013 to overturn consent for the Viking Energy Windfarm.

Sustainable Shetland Chair Frank Hay said “we were amazed and humbled by the financial support we received to fund our Judicial Review last year. Despite the fact that the hearing was extended from 4 days to 14, due to circumstances outside our control, we managed to pay for it in full through fundraising and donation (and without major benefactor) – a total of nearly £100,000. This shows a great strength of feeling against the Viking Energy Windfarm among our Members and indeed the wider Shetland community. However, the battle is not over and we estimate that we may need to raise as much as a further £40,000 to fund our challenge to the Ministers’ appeal. For this reason, we believe it is time to cast our net wider. Windfarms are a national issue, and there are many throughout the UK who feel strongly that in some cases ‘big energy’ interests are damaging our environment rather than improving it. We hope that people around the country will show their support for our cause, which has nationwide implications regarding large scale windfarm developments and the protection of breeding bird species.”
This may be the first crowdfunder campaign that has been undertaken in Shetland. The campaign will be live from 10am Friday www.crowdfunder.co.uk/sustainable-shetland

Ends.