Representation by Richard John Fridd
- Date submitted
- 7 March 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Although, I like the principle of becoming energy self sufficient and generating our own electricity I do not believe that these land based schemes are viable and efficient use of space. I object to the Sunnica scheme on the following basis; It is not productive use of high quality arable land. I dont believe that once the soil has been stripped and steel posts driven in, that this land will ever be returned to arable land and will be prime for development in the future. The solar farm at Burwell is under construction now and the growing soil is being removed. Removal is reliant on a huge number of traffic movements (by heavy goods vehicles) through the village and even at these early stage the roads are crumbling and the village road network adversely affected. The contractor is running a diesel generator 24/7 to power their site setup creating even more carbon in the local atmosphere and way in excess of any farming operations. The use of solar panels and precious metals is not a good use of these resources. PV panels cannot be recycled. Sunnica is a foreign based company and I do not believe that non UK investors should be involved in the provision of power for our country. We become even more reliant on foreign countries for the import of foods due to the loss of arable land. The UK population is growing and we need all of the arable land for arable use. The solar farm will blight Burwell which is under sustained pressure to accept more and more industrial energy based systems at no benefit to Burwell or the surrounding areas. The solar farm does not create local jobs and is being undertaken by a northern contractor that travels into the area using even more fossil fuels and creating more carbon. Power at any cost is not environmentally friendly solution. Regards Richard Fridd