Representation by Craig Huntbatch
- Date submitted
- 26 February 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
The enormous scale of the proposed plant will totally destroy the agricultural landscape and harm the local environment. The mass industrialisation of the area will harm wildlife habitats and have a material adverse impact on the health and wellbeing of the local residents. There will be no benefit at all to local residents because the electricity produced will be fed into the national grid and not used to power local residential areas or businesses. The Mallard Pass developer has stated that the solar panels will be set back from residential areas, roads and footpaths and new hedges/ green landscaping will be planted to screen the plant. However, unless fully mature hedges and trees are going to be planted, it will be 15-20 years before they have grown sufficiently to cover the plant. This means that the solar panels and industrial buildings will be visible for many, many years which will cause huge damage to the area. Rather than building on key agricultural land, the plant should be built on a brownfield site which would more suitable to an industrial environment. There are also huge opportunities and benefits of installing solar panels on building and warehouse roofs. There will major disruption and pollution caused during the construction phase, which is planned to last at least 2 years. In particular, the local road network and community are totally inadequate for proposed construction traffic and planned workforce. Mallard Pass have stated that there will be over 100 HGV movements every day coming through narrow country roads and busy junctions. On Ryhall Road, for example, these HGVs will pass Casterton Community school and Casterton Junior school, thundering through a 20 mph zone and causing local pollution. The junctions at either end of the road are already busy and totally unsuitable for large vehicles. We are told by Mallard Pass that there will be a workforce of around 400 people visiting the site every day. This will also generate huge volumes of traffic to and from the site, at peak hours for local commuting and school runs. Again, the local rural roads and environment are totally inadequate for this increase in traffic and associated pollution it will cause The public consultation by the developer has been inadequate, with poor level if information detailing the impacts on local residents. For example, it was not mentioned that compulsory acquisition rights may be sought for the cable installations together with the adverse impact this will have on local residents. The developers behind Mallard Pass have no track record of building and operating solar plants of this scale and I suspect that they are only doing this for financial gain. Why should local residents have to bear the impact of this monstrous development when the only beneficiaries are developers who only have a financial interest? Finally, I am very concerned that there is reported evidence of Uyghur forced labour being used in the supply chain of [Redacted], the primary developer of MPSF. We should not be supporting a development which has serious ethical and human rights concerns.