Representation by Alan T Richardson
- Date submitted
- 2 March 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
My principal concerns relate to 1. Sunnica's apparent lack of track record in major infrastructures projects given the scale of this scheme. If the scheme fails this could have a major effect on the reputation of decarbonising projects hindering meeting CO2 reduction targets. 2. Major concerns on the safety of the battery storage component of the scheme and Sunnica's apparent lack of expertise in this area constituting a major hazard to public safety (there have been major fire incidents in other smaller battery schemes around the world). 3. Sunnica's outline decommissioning plan foresees them paying into the decommissioning fund from the revenue from the scheme many years after commissioning. Given Sunnica's lack of experience, it is possible that the construction might fail (for example, if they run out of funds) and the authorities be left with the cost of cleaning up the unfinished project 4. The carbon benefit of the scheme as prevented so far is extremely vague. There has been no quantification of the carbon cost of construction through the lorry movements, carbon cost of the infrastructure and the reduction in carbon capture of the land once the panels and batteries are installed. 5. The plan to hide the scheme infrastructure through tree planting is long delayed since the contractor plans to plant saplings towards the end of the construction process which will take many years to obscure the Solar Farm infrastructure. 6. The prior consultation was inadequate. Due to COVID, Sunnica restricted their consultation to a few webinars and took questions through the webinar chat facility without allowing any follow up to their responses. This enabled them to evade most of the questions out during the consultation. They declined to attend a public meeting arranged by the MPs (Lucy Frazer and Matt Hancock) of the constituencies that would be affected by their project.