Representation by Peter Alder
- Date submitted
- 16 March 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
• Health and Welfare – potential for fire in the battery storage facilities to spread harmful toxins and materials over a wide area potentially affecting the health and welfare of myself and the residents of villagers in the areas bounding the proposed solar panel farm sites. In the early 1980s I was the Industrial Manager for the former Forest Heath District Council in Mildenhall and one of our smaller industrial units suffered a catastrophic fire that at 1,000 degrees centigrade caused the asbestos cement sheeted roof to explode spreading the debris over a surprising wide area in the locality of the industrial area. A fire in a battery storage associated with this proposed solar panels farm would potentially be far more catastrophic in its spread of toxic materials. • Traffic generation during construction – the local roads are not capable of taking and sustaining heavy vehicles and traffic levels, especially during the construction phases. In recent years underground power lines were installed beneath the B1102 county road from Burwell to USAF Lakenheath and Brandon during a year-long cut and fill operation. This caused considerable disruption to the high volumes of traffic on that busy road, resulting in diversions along Golf Links Road at Worlington which was highly unsuitable for such traffic and on other diversionary routes through villages such as West Row. The construction traffic to the solar panel farm sites will potentially add considerably to traffic generation in the area and through diversionary routes through villages. • Loss of fertile farming land – at a time when conflict in Eastern Europe has demonstrated that fallacious policies that this and other countries have exercised over a considerable number of years to source the bulk of our essential foodstuffs, such as wheat, from far flung and often unstable parts of the World, it is crazy to be losing such a large area of farming land from productive use in feeding our populace. • Loss of amenity – areas either currently accessed by the public for recreational purposes or bordering attractive such areas will be covered by these proposed panels for a period of at least 40 years thereby rendering this area to become less attractive for rural recreation. Rural villages affected directly by these sites will become squeezed between industrial landscapes thereby greatly detrimentally impacting upon the rural charms of these villages and their surroundings. • With the proximity of R.A.F./U.S.A.F. Mildenhall and the flights by C-5 Galaxy, C-17 Globemaster, C-130 Hercules, V-22 Osprey and other aircraft (including civilian airliners and occasionally Air Force One Boeing 747), the large expanses of solar panels may well present glare to inbound or circling pilots to the potential detriment to their safety and that of people on the ground should an unfortunate accident occur as a result.