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area of Pronounced Volcanic Hills and Crags - characterised by conspicuous, pronounced, oftendistinctive and recognisable hills or hill ranges, important backdrops to other landscape types,distinctive shapes, silhouettes, and skylines, with woodlands, steadings and other buildings wellrelatedto landform, and a lack of villages or larger settlements. This landscape type is alsocharacterised by a combination of steep sided, rugged, open landform and land cover on hills,and shallower, smoother, more vegetated and more intensively used lower slopes; medium tolarge-scale, open, simple, sloping, curved, quiet and balanced landscapes with smooth or variedtextures and muted colours. Advice for any new developments within this landscape category isthat isolated or sporadic or scattered development would be conspicuous and out of characterwith the landscape, and any development proposal on the upper or middle slopes should besubject to special scrutiny to ensure that it would not detract from the general open nature of theslopes. Further to this, the document also advises that any new installations of masts, windturbines or other tall or industrial like structures should be avoided on all distinctive, recognisableand prominent hill tops, peaks or skylines, and that the potential to steer windfarm developmentsaway from exposed and steep ridgelines and summits and from locations where their visualinfluence would extend across the lowlands should be explored. Consideration should be givento potential areas within shallow bowls and valleys, away from ridges, maximise the amount ofbackclothing provided by the natural landform, and consider steering development to areasalready affected by masts, etc. It should however be noted that the application site lies adjacentto the Lowland Hills and Valleys which are characterised by the variety and subtlety of thelandform with open, regular farmland patterns and extensive areas of plantations. Thedocument advises that these areas, subject to appropriate design and siting, have the capacityto accommodate modest scale development and structures.3.3.7 The ASH study (2006) provides maps outlining Broad Areas of Search of which theClentrie Farm site is included in that area of search. The study was commissioned to produce adefinitive area of search subdivided into areas where particular ranges of turbine heights couldbe accommodated without significant landscape effects based upon the landscape’s capacity toaccept them. This approach was adopted to positively direct the renewables industry topotentially acceptable locations with an early indication of the appropriate scale of developmentin these locations from a landscape capacity standpoint. Overall, the study has identified thoseareas within a strategic area of Fife which may have the potential to accommodate some windfarm development and which would involve least impact in terms of potential adverse landscapeeffects. The study evaluation was further guided by the objectives and guidelines for the variouslandscape areas within Fife established by the 1999 Fife Landscape Character Assessmentdocument. The ASH study advice for Medium, small extent developments (i.e. turbines of 50-100m consisting of 1-5 turbines) such as this proposal at Clentrie Farm (located within thedefined Pronounced Volcanic Hills and Crags landscape character area), is that such adevelopment scenario may result in minor potential effects on the landscape (e.g. the landscapecharacter has a moderate sensitivity to such a development scenario, would result in minorpotential effects, would not be potentially significant, and has capacity to accommodate a windfarm). The study does however state that it should not be automatically followed that adevelopment will be unacceptable in a landscape character area where significant effects arepredicted as individual proposals may be tailored to the constraints of individual sites, andmitigation measures may be proposed.3.3.8 The SNH document on Siting and Designing Windfarms in the Landscape (2009) providesadvice and guidance to help guide windfarms towards those landscapes best able toaccommodate them and to advise on how windfarms can be designed to best relate to theirsetting and minimise landscape and visual impacts. It provides advice on matters forconsideration such as landscape and visual assessments, design, scale, layout, colour and18