A rural community facing multiple planning applications for large-scale solar farms has told of the problems it faces.
Staffordshire County Council’s short film was shown at Stowe-by-Chartley Parish Council to councillors and members of the public.
It shows the impact on a small community that has seen one solar energy farm approved and two similar planning applications in the offing.
Andrew Mynors, Staffordshire County Council’s cabinet member for Connectivity, said:
Staffordshire County Council’s Stop the Solar Land Grab campaign is intended to protect communities such as this.
We need solar energy in the 21st century but how the Government goes about planning and developing it needs to be better coordinated than at present.
If all three applications succeed, then more than 500 acres of the land around the village of Drointon will be covered in panels and battery facilities.
And one of the unseen consequences is that once a farming family leaves the land, those skills are lost for good.
Although this is a story of one community’s troubles, it’s a typical example of the consequences of the solar land grab that we’re facing.”
With effects of the solar applications described as “devastating”, the film shows how multiple complex planning applications affect the community, from relationships between residents to worrying about how country lanes will cope with heavy vehicles delivering building materials, or whether the land itself is suitable for heavy construction.
Peter Coote, Chair of Stowe-by-Chartley Parish Council, said:
We welcome Staffordshire County Council using our story as an example of the problems caused by the solar land grab.
Residents have had to become experts in planning law to try and protect their community from gross over-development.
We are a farming community and providing food is our priority; we think renewable energy can be delivered in better ways than this and with greater coordination.”
Staffordshire County Council’s Stop the Solar land Grab campaign wants a coordinated nationwide development policy for solar development and a better understanding of future food need so that the country has food independence.
Andrew Mynors added:
The Government’s new land use framework says that only one per cent of land will be given over to alternative energy, but because there is no structure in place, somewhere like Drointon may have 80 per cent of its land covered for the next 40 years.
It’s that inequality, often with unsuited areas facing the brunt of the problem, that we’re trying to address.”
The campaign pledge and more information can be found at https://letstalk.staffordshire.gov.uk/solar-land
And watch the film at: https://youtu.be/Fh7jhEU-7Tk
