The Scottish Government says the move was needed to tackle the "burden" caused by the growth in AI-assisted objections to energy projects. Critics say it is a way to mute public opposition.
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The Scottish Government says the move was needed to tackle the "burden" caused by the growth in AI-assisted objections to energy projects. Critics say it is a way to mute public opposition.
Artificial intelligence has fuelled a “significant” surge in objections to some of Scotland’s biggest planning applications and prompted the Scottish Government to stop accepting public responses by email.
The rules for consultations on major energy projects were changed in January after an increase in the use of AI in submissions, a freedom of information response to The Ferret shows.
The Energy Consents Unit (ECU) – the team within the Scottish Government which handles applications for projects such as wind farms and pylon lines – now only accepts objections from the public through its own online portal or by post.
The change was made following what the ECU described in internal correspondence as a “significant rise in the use of AI in emailed representations”, each of which had to be “processed manually with no verification of sender identity”.
Dealing with this had created a “significant administrative burden” and made it harder to distinguish “genuine individual concerns from bulk automated content”, one official wrote.
The new system would ensure “protection against fraud” and maintain “the integrity of the consultation process”, the Scottish Government argued.
But the move sparked a backlash in some quarters, with critics claiming it could stop people from legitimately participating in Scotland’s planning process and that AI could help people navigate the complex planning system.
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It comes amid wider concern that a deluge of objections generated with AI could see the UK’s planning system “grind to a halt”.
One application for new homes in the English midlands was reportedly the subject of more than 500 email objections from one local resident, including a 160-page report full of errors and hallucinations (when AI generates false, misleading or fabricated information).
The ECU is not the only Scottish body which says it has come under strain. The Scottish Information Commissioner had to limit the number of appeals to his office under freedom of information law after an “influx” of “machine-generated AI appeals”.
The ban on email submissions has had a particular impact on ObjectNow, a service which generates objection letters to planning applications with the help of AI.
The freedom of information response shows it wrote to the Scottish Government to protest on 20 January, days after the change was made, arguing that it had “never sought to overload the system or generate artificial volumes of representations”.
According to its website, the group – which says it is not-for-profit and run by volunteers whose identities are not public – helped 50,000 people across the UK submit objections in 2025.
These were mainly made by opponents of wind farms, battery sites and pylons, but ObjectNow says its service can also be used to oppose housing developments and infrastructure projects.
Local groups can set up a campaign against a project on the ObjectNow platform, which then allows individuals to produce detailed objections for free in three minutes from “start to sent”.
ObjectNow said no local campaign groups had approached it for help opposing a Scottish energy project handled by the ECU since the email ban came into force.
A spokesperson said calling its objection letters "written by AI" did a "disservice to volunteers who give their time to draft the strong foundational letters" used by the system. The group said those letters are based on extensive analysis of planning documents.
“At no point has ObjectNow allowed AI to generate a letter and submit it without human involvement,” they said, adding that every objection is checked to ensure that it comes from a “real person with real concerns”.
ObjectNow described the ECU’s decision to scrap email responses as “a means of muting the true scale of public opposition” to energy developments and “avoid headlines” such as the over 10,000 objections made to the Kintore to Tealing pylon line.
“A publicly funded department of the Scottish Government should have the technology, staffing and capacity to process any number of objections or representations submitted, regardless of how they are prepared or delivered,” the spokesperson added.
A Scottish Government spokesperson told The Ferret: “Our planning and consenting system ensures that local communities can always have their say – and any objections and material considerations are carefully balanced when determining applications.
“Due to the volume of emailed representations received in previous years, the Scottish Government invested in the Energy Consents Unit’s online portal to ensure public representations are now made directly to Scottish ministers.
“This ensures protection against misrepresentations and maintains the integrity of the consultation process.”
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