Representation by Oliver Fieldsend
- Date submitted
- 6 March 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I am fiercely opposed to the proposal which I believe are wholly about the financial gain of the developer and other interested parties rather than the purported energy and environmental benefits. They will fill their pockets and the local people, wildlife and environment will suffer and will continue to suffer long after they have made their money and moved on. A brief look at the development company, Island Green Power, is very revealing. The CEO is an Asset Manager – he built and sold a huge Asset Management company for untold millions. The Chairman (Redacted)presumably there to open doors, gain access to the highest powers in central government to influence decision making with disregard for local people, issues, policies, politicians, councils, councillors etc. The company is 50% owned by Macquarie, a foreign bank. The British government should not allow a foreign bank to use British farmland as a green credentials PR exercise and to bulldoze local people and authorities for their financial gain. You also have to question why any company that isn’t a law firm would need 15-20% of their staff to be lawyers. A combination of money, financial greed, political power and legal wranglings should not be allowed to overpower the overwhelming will of the local people, councils, and MPs. Governments have for many years ignored the countryside, the people in them, rural communities and communities outside London and the south east. Too often and for too long governments have allowed the greed of those in the south east and with access to the corridors of power to dictate to local people. This government has a choice about these proposals. If it is really serious about local communities, the midlands and north, and “levelling up” they cannot, with any real conscious, allow these proposals to go ahead. In addition to the above, the Gate Burton proposal is just one of four Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) within a few miles of each other, amounting to 10,000 acres in total. This is far too large and it is unreasonable that the proposals are not considered as one. The proposal will result in the unnecessary loss of productive food producing farmland. It will industrialise a rural landscape, against the wishes of local people, causing tremendous damage to the environment and wildlife, and ruin the view from the B1398 "Lincoln cliff road” which is designated as an Area of Great Landscape Value (AGLV). While I recognise that solar has an important part to play in the energy mix, and I am not opposed to solar per se, the size, scale, and location of this proposal is wholly unacceptable.