CLIMATE campaigners have urged First Minister John Swinney to reject “disastrous” proposals for the construction of a gas-burning power station in north-east Scotland.

A coalition of 44 environmental groups, including Oxfam, Fuel Poverty Action and Friends of the Earth Scotland, has condemned the joint plan by Scottish energy firm SSE and Norwegian oil giant Equinor for a new electricity-generating facility next to the existing power plant near Peterhead, Aberdeenshire.

In a letter to ministers, the group warns that the present power station has been the country’s “single biggest polluter” for the last five years and claims that any expansion would lock Scots into paying energy bills set by international gas markets.