Back to list West Burton Solar Project

Representation by Giles Walter

Date submitted
30 May 2023
Submitted by
Members of the public/businesses
  1. Decarbonisation a. I fully accept that we as a country need to embrace the decarbonisation agenda and that solar plays an important role, but it must be installed in the correct places. The UK is not the sunniest of locations but does have some excellent farmland. b. I am a huge supporter of the offshore wind industry as this plays to the UK’s strength with consistent wind conditions on shallow sea beds. c. The developers maintain that the two coal fired power stations that are being decommissioned have the electricity grid network attached so make an ideal location for solar farms to be plugged into them. The government are championing the construction of small nuclear reactors so would not these be a more sensible solution for Cottam and West Burton instead. 2. Fours schemes a. Although the proposals are presented as four separate schemes the project should be viewed as one massive solar farm. b. There is a suspicion that by having four separate applications the developers are trying to mask the overall scale. It also requires any objectors to put in four separate representations. c. This is, in reality, one massive project and should be presented as such. 3. Loss of Agricultural land a. My main concern with the proposals relates to the serious loss of productive agricultural land. We must ensure not only energy security for the UK but also food security. The war in Ukraine has vividly shown that we cannot rely on grain and food imports when that supply chain can be so suddenly broken. b. The developers will no doubt maintain that the panels are to be installed on lower grade land. The agricultural land classification is now very outdated and does not take in account modern farm practices and the advancement in machinery. The land earmarked for the panels is in the main good productive arable land. It is simply not sensible to take 10,000 acres out of food production when there are so many better ways of providing green energy. There is a finite supply of good agricultural land in the UK and Lincolnshire has some of the best in the Country. 4. Visual intrusion a. With 10,000 acres to be taken over by panels the visual intrusion will be huge. The Lincoln Edge sits to the east of the proposed area and the views from that edge will be massively impacted. The UK is generally viewed as green and pleasant land, but these proposals will impose an industrialisation of the countryside. b. The scale is simply overwhelming and ugly. PV panels are alien to a rural location. c. Farmers are endlessly told that they must be the custodians of the countryside with stewardship grants now in place of the EU subsidies. How do these proposals square with this custodianship.