HAVE YOUR SAY
Isn’t this just a ‘done deal’, between powerful developers, landowners chasing income and government wanting to meet their renewable energy targets?
No! A ‘Stop Green Hill Solar farm’ group has formed to involve as many communities and individuals as possible. Its objectives:
Provide a dynamic voice to give another perspective: put utility-size solar industry in the right locations, not on farmland bordering villages, changing the countryside forever.
Communicate as early as possible in the process, ensuring people are informed and have a route to have their say.
Target government, media and important organisations nationally and locally in support of a ‘joined-up’ approach to putting appropriately-sized solar installations in the right locations.
To work with the support of the UK Solar Alliance (UKSA), representing more than 120 groups fighting against inappropriate solar industry proposals across the UK and lobbying politicians and media.
Sign up to register your objection, and stay updated on important actions from Stop Green Hill Solar.
Write to your MP and local councillors
See the CONTACT page for details of your local MP.
Write to Island Green Power with your questions. It’s good to do this now. You are welcome to include [email protected] so we can note the communications, questions asked and responses.
You can also phone on:
Tel. 0800 012 9882
The timeframe from Island Green Power for its planning application is as follows:
March 2024: Private consultations with representatives of invited local organisations.
Spring/Summer 2024: impact surveys: environmental, ecological, archaeological etc.
Autumn 2024: Statutory public consultations. The chance to ask questions in person.
February 2025: Full planning application to Secretary of State, for Development Consent Order.
In considering the Green Hill Solar farm proposals, you may wish to consider:
- The loss of important agricultural land, including Best and Most Versatile (BMV) grades 1, 2, and 3a
- The solar utility’s proximity to where you live, any conservation areas, listed buildings including homes, churches and monuments, and how the ‘setting’ around these areas will be affected
- Effects on views from public points around villages and the countryside. To note: planning decisions do not consider the loss of views from private properties!
- How it will affect the pastoral nature of rural villages, and potentially the value of homes: although adverse effects on house prices are also not a planning consideration!
- Effects on footpaths and bridleways that cross the proposed solar farm area, and access to rural amenities
- The loss of open countryside, replaced with acres of solar panels metres high, with tall mesh security fencing, storage containers for electrical equipment, security cameras and lighting
- Effects on wildlife: are the studies by the developer sufficient to understand the effects on wildlife, particularly rare and protected species that experts and locals are aware of including otters, water voles, bats and birds such as owls, migratory species such as swallows? Natural England has apparently just suggested one year’s bird data is sufficient rather than the two years normally expected!
- Proximity and effects on protected environmental areas and Sites of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI). Sywell and Brixworth reservoirs; Grendon’s gravel pit lakes; Summer Leys nature reserve; the Nene Valley waterways. Agricultural land is functionally linked to these areas for birds, bats and other wildlife.
- Additional hedging and screening: removing existing hedgerows compromises wildlife; how quickly will new hedging grow, and will deciduous screening be adequate during winter months?
- Additional HGV traffic during installation and additional traffic once operational
- Lights and noise from the sites’ inverters/battery storage and transformer systems even if solar panels themselves are claimed as silent. IGP confirms some, if not all, solar panels will likely rotate to follow the sun: noise, glint and glare
- The environmental effects of solar panel manufacture, likely in China, their replacements over six decades and their disposal, cleaning and maintenance
- The ‘temporary’ 60-year tenure of the solar farm: how will lands be returned to former use (to be farmed?); the risk of renewed planning permission or new alternative industrial development on ex solar farmland or nearby