Representation by Laura Gurnham
- Date submitted
- 15 March 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I live a village that will be almost entirely surrounded by this project. Both it's construction and it's existence will impact me on a day to day basis. This is on a personal level and safety level when concerning riding horses due to reduction of safety on the roads from the heavy traffic and loss of riding routes. The below bullet points are some of my other concerns with the project that affect both me and the area in which I live in. I have included my email in the form above so I can be kept informed of any updates. •There will be a loss of footpaths and bridleways, and the roads around will be made unsafe with all the extra heavy traffic. Due to being a rural area, people need to walk on the roads as there are no pavements. It is dangerous enough on these narrow roads cars speeding passed, having large heavy lorries do so is extremely dangerous. To get to the bridleways, we must ride horses on the roads - the roads Sunnica are proposing to use as transport routes. With them closing the bridleways, will we be forced to use these roads more as they will be our only option. They are barely wide enough for two cars to pass by each other, let alone a lorry to pass a car or horse. •The increased traffic will ruin the country roads Sunnica want to use. These roads are not maintained as A roads and more major routes are, meaning the surface of the will become unsafe to use for those that live on them. •There will be zero benefit to the local residents who will be losing roads, pathways, land, jobs, ways of life, fields, wildlife, and habitats to this project. This was confirmed by Sunnica when it was put to them in person. •There will be a loss of jobs. The fields are currently agricultural, so provide employment for many people – the farmers, the farm hands, the delivery drivers who pick up the crops, the people who supply fertiliser and irrigation, the factories the produce goes to, feed supplies to the pigs. This loss would be for every field taken by this project. In a rural area where these are main areas work, and therefore jobs. Sunnica have said this ENTIRE project will only give an offer of 27 jobs. Despite the loss of several times that many. •There will be a loss of productive farmland. These fields produce cereals, potatoes, sugar beet, carrots, onions, and many more, at a very productive yield. Crops not only go to local shops, but also major brands such as Marks and Spencer and British Sugar. If the land was as poor as Sunnica suggest, the produce grown would not be suitable or in such quantities that these companies would keep buying them annually. •There is a major concern on the safety of the batteries and their location, one site of which would be next to a primary school. There have been several examples of the dangers of these batteries when they overheat in the past year or so. These fires so far have not been near residential areas as solar parks this size have never been built this close to people before. Sunnica have said that the final design of these batteries has not been decided, so how can they promise they will be safe if they don’t actually know what they are building yet. Tesla are a very leading company in terms of technology, and if they have suffered from fires on their solar battery units, a company with zero experience in this area will almost certainly experience fires in theirs. Only these fires will be next to villages and schools, not in the outback miles away from residential areas as the Tesla fire was. •There have been no engagement or interaction from Sunnica with the residents in the areas affected by the building or running of this project. Not with the people who live next to the proposed areas, not with the landowners who will lose land to this, not the residents who will be losing paths and routes of way, not with local businesses who would lose custom due to it – no one. They have only attended one in person event (arranged by us residents NOT by Sunnica), saying that due to Covid they haven’t been able to and haven’t need to do more. Any information about this project I have been given has been from local groups we have put up between us. But we have had to search to find it. I live right in the very middle of this proposal, and I have only ever received one letter from Sunnica about the project. One. Back early in 2020. This is the same for others in the other villages. Yet Sunnica say that they have engaged with those in the area. They haven’t even agreed to meet with the MP’s for the area, despite them asking.