Rupes Rags catch up on the Lottery scandal

The Sunday Times March 19, 2006

Lottery throws £10m to the wind
Mark Macaskill and John Elliott
THE government has been accused of raiding £10m of lottery money intended for good causes to subsidise the construction of a wind farm by a foreign energy company.

The grant to a subsidiary of Elsam, a Danish energy giant that is being taken over by the Danish state, will help to pay for a wind farm four miles offshore in Liverpool Bay.

So starts the FRONT PAGE story in the Sunday Times today about the way Lottery money was allocated to altrenative energy projects in Liverpool Bay, Lockernie and to the fabulously wealthy Earl of Buccleuch.

...you could have read about it here on Postman Patel 6 months ago on October 25th 2005 ...



UK Lottery Funds subsidise huge EU companies to produce electricity!

E.ON is to build the largest dedicated UK biomass power station in Lockerbie in Scotland. Work on the innovative 44 Mw power station will commence in late 2005 to go on stream at the end of 2007. The EUR 130Mn (£89Mn) investment by the German company, the world's largest private-sector energy services company, will be built by a consortium of the Norwegian company Kvaerner Power, part of the Aker Kvaerner group and Siemens.

The Big Lottery Fund, supported the development of the new biomass plant with a grant of £18m from the Bioenergy Capital Grants Scheme (approx 25% of cost)

In September Siemens Power Generation announced the agreement to supply its new 3.6 megawatts wind turbine for the Burbo Banks offshore wind farm in Liverpool Bay, England. The farm is being developed by SeaScape Energy Ltd., a joint Danish( Elsam A/S ), and the French ( state owned EDF Energies Nouvelles) enterprise and will have 25 wind turbines with a total capacity of 90Mw. The order is valued at over EUR90 Mn (£49 Mn). The Big Lottery Fund, supported the development of field with a grant of £10m (20% of cost) from the Bioenergy Capital Grants Scheme. Read more click on title

Droit-de-seigneur

Walter Francis John Scott, 9th Duke of Buccleuch, 11th Duke of Queensberry (b. 1923) Eton and Christ Church,Oxford,owns five major landed Estates, his estimated personal fortune of £55m is supplemented by a further c.£400m held by the Buccleuch Group, his holding company.

On January 3rd this year, Buccleuch BioEnergy was awarded a tax free grant to develop the business of £571,933 from the Big Lottery renewable Energy Fund to "to develop the business ." Read more click on title

Three cheers for the hard nosed investigative journos on the Sunset Times ... first with the news. Curiously examining the log of page referrals I note a Google search "duke buccleuch lottery" last week from a London site.????