Representation by Simon Skelton
- Date submitted
- 23 March 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Gate Burton Energy Park (GBEP) is just one of four giant solar proposals in West Lindsey and all within a 6 mile radius. It is therefore quite obvious that this is one 2000MW (peak) solar project "salami sliced" into four. Two of the projects are even by the same developer! All four projects should therefore be examined together. The developers are sharing legal teams and the cable route sharing could be seen as a tool to link all four schemes to get multi DCOs. These proposals would industrialise vast areas of countryside between villages and isolate them from their agricultural heritage. This rural area would be reduced to one of the worlds largest solar farms and battery storage facilities. Solar energy being so intermittant an land hungry should not be the first choice of land based energy generation. Modular nuclear and wind are far more land efficient, low carbon alternatives and would be less intrusive than the current proposals. Solar panels should be roof mounted. GBEP's enormous footprint combined with the other three projects means that this agricultural area famed for UK food production would loose 10,000 acres of farmland, with not a single brownfield site being seriously considered. Agricultural chain employment will be reduced and our countryside destroyed forever. Permanent Socio-economic ruination for a few hundred transient workers. Communities will lose everything. This is not a fair trade off. What gives solar developers the right to demant such huge quantities of land. This is cumulatively an area the size of Lincoln. Solar by its very nature cannot provide energy security and factored at 11%. The 500MW(P) GBEP would really only be a 50MW generator. It may be cheap, it may be quick but it certainly is not for UK farmland. One thing that can be relied on is that solar panels generate exactly NOTHING for half their life time! A sobering thought for a tempory proposal of 60 years. Let us do the right thing? Thank you.