Representation by Paul Brooks
- Date submitted
- 13 March 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I would like to oppose the Sunnica Application on the grounds that it inappropriate to place an industrial power plant around rural villages. Some of the many reasons why I oppose this application are: The size and scale of this development is only about charging batteries and storing Solar power and then selling it later at profit, during the night hours. The impact on traffic and disruption to local peoples lives who gain no benefit from the application, and this is for a period of more than 3 years, 6 days a week and 12-13 hours a day. I also believe the roads in the area not big enough or this level of traffic as the width of local roads are not suitable for a vastly increased level of HGV traffic. There are significant risks to the industrial battery storage in terms of Health and Safety when considering the potential of Fire with large steel contain full of batteries, which f they caught fire, the Fire brigade don’t know how to extinguish this type of fire. Also, the fire will give off toxic gasses and there will be danger to life. In Environmental terms following a battery container Fire pollutants and toxic material will leach into the ground and possibly migrate to the water table! Loss of productive farmland, this I know to be true as being a resident of Freckenham I often take walks in the countryside, walking the margins and between the fields with crops. I often walk to nearby villages of Isleham and Worlingham, and it is not acceptable for the rural landscape to be lost. Visual Appearances will be blighted for 10 – 15 years before screening vegetation grows to a size to be effective. Sunnica in a conversation with Parish councillors prior to one sided pubic consultation meetings, stated the intention was the plant 1-2 year old screening trees and bushes, at this time they freely stated it would take at least 10 years for these seedings to grow to a hight where they would shield the view for Solar panels. Being a Freckenham resident I also know the public consultation was wholly inadequate. This was affected by Covid, but to swap live discussions for online “Teams” presentations by the Sunnica consortium who handpicked the typed questions they wanted to answer and muted the residents’ microphones, so no retorts or discord was recorded, when their answers were given. These videos if viewed later at some point would give the impression that the participants were happy with Sunnica’s answers. For years people who chose to live in a calm quiet rural setting will be disrupted in their daily lives. This also comes at a time then food security of an Island nation should be considered more important. I would also contend that a lot of wheat or other crops could be grown on 2,792 acres.