Representation by Caroline Louise Anders
- Date submitted
- 12 January 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I strongly object to the proposed solar farm project. 1. It will use prime agricultural greenfield land at a time when global food supplies are threatened, and future security uncertain in the extreme. One of the proposed benefits of Brexit was the increase in home-grown food (reducing food-miles and increasing employment) and for this to be a realistic prospect, we need to nurture the agricultural land we have. The loss of such a vast swathe of prime and Grade 3 agricultural land would negatively affect farmers and the local economy. 2. Government policy states land-based solar should be placed on non-agricultural or brownfield sites. This alone should disqualify the development. (Related policy: paragraph 170 Paragraph: 013 Reference ID: 5-013-20150327 "encouraging the effective use of land by focussing large scale solar farms on previously developed and non agricultural land,") 3. Although the company is named [Redacted] the owner is subject to all Chinese legislation world-wide. It is absolutely inappropriate that a [Redacted] should have such influence on British energy. The expansion of [Redacted] has included the 2014 acquisition of major US energy developer, Recurrent, and there will, without doubt, be future take-over of other National providers. With an extremely dubious human-rights record, we do not want reliance on the Chinese State in the UK energy market. 4. Once the solar farms are completed [Redacted] sells them on to third party power producers. There is no information whatsoever regarding these future owners.