Representation by Jane Leitch
- Date submitted
- 16 March 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Sunnica Registration – Objection Size & scale The size of the proposal is bigger than many of the village settlements it is surrounding. There will be a loss of the setting of these villages which have flat agricultural landscape between them. Battery storage The original proposal did not include the size, the close proximity to rural settlements including primary schools and the quantity that is now put in the final proposal. Green Energy It’s flagged as a green, save the environment proposal. But the mining for the essential components to make the solar panels is far from green, environmentally or safe for the mine workers. The batteries will be storing energy from the main grid so it will be no longer green energy. The miles of cabling to transport the energy to the main grid at Burwell is not efficient. Decommissioning Bond There is still no definitive proposal to cover the cost for the end of use clear up of the solar panels, batteries and buildings. Disruption during construction The roads that Sunnica are proposing to use many are too small to be even classified. The proposal to “widen” junctions for the construction traffic will be detrimental for the communities. Community disruption Freckenham village has an active village hall and pub used by villagers and those from the surrounding area. It will be detrimental financially to these venues and their activities as people will be put off from coming if there are road closures, detours, traffic lights etc. As well as the loss of the setting people driving from the Isleham area say that it is one of the nicest rural views as you travel down to the Fordham end of Freckeham. Wildlife disruption/loss The wildlife will be disrupted for the 2 years of the construction work, in this time they will deprived of their usual quiet settings to nest and breed. By the time the work is completed the wildlife is likely to have given up on the use of the sites they had previously used and will fail to return to nest and breed even on the designated wildlife sites proposed. There were assurances given at the original consultation about coming out to walk with residents to view the settings that would be affected by the Sunnica proposal. Inadequate consultation Sunnica have used the Covid lockdowns to their benefit as their webinairs were totally one sided. We had to submit questions in advance and then the answers given just referred to various document(s) with no real answer given to the question and no chance to ask a further question in response to their inadequate answer. We still need face to face discussions with Sunnica and their team of experts to actually find any real value in a proposal of this size.