PLANS to make Cumnock the ‘green energy capital’ of Scotland have taken a major step forward after the hub for the town’s Community Renewable Energy Project (CoRE) was given the green light by councillors.

Members of East Ayrshire Council’s planning committee gave the green light last week to the application for the ‘centre of excellence’ on the Knockroon site on Auchinleck Road.

The hub will include two interlinked buildings – one including a demonstrator hall and cafe, the other featuring labs, a workshop, community hub, officer and meeting rooms – and an external research and innovation yard, along with car parking space and landscaping work.

Council bosses previously said the scheme, which aims to capitalise on the area’s geothermal, hydro, wind, hydrogen and solar power potential, will play a key role in helping reach the authority’s target of being a ‘zero carbon area’ by 2045 – as well as showing other towns in Scotland the way to becoming self-sufficient in their energy needs.

Permission for the scheme – one of four East Ayrshire projects in the £250 million Ayrshire Growth Deal – was granted despite objections from four residents who raised concern over the proximity of the site to nearby homes and the impact on neighbours during the construction phase.

None of the statutory consultees made any objections to the application, which was unanimously approved by the committee.

It’s planned that the facility will itself be built to ‘Passivhaus’ standards which minimise heat loss and energy usage.

Councillor Neill Watts (Conservative, Cumnock and New Cumnock), a member of the committee, said: “I gave my full support to this application.

“I proposed an enhancement to planning condition 23 which involves landscaping and boundary treatments to the development, which was also agreed unanimously by the committee.

“It will now be a condition that the development must have extra planting of trees and shrubs to its border with Auchinleck Road.

“This will mean that the development will be screened further from the main road and will create a greener border in keeping with the rest of the area.”

It’s hoped that the facility will be in operation by 2024.