Representation by Tracy Adderley
- Date submitted
- 30 May 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I strongly object to the West Burton solar farm proposal. It is just 1 of 4 Solar, Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) within a few miles of each other and together these would create the largest solar farm complex in Europe, amounting to some 10,000 acres in total. We must look at all 4 of the proposals together rather than independently given the scale of the projects. The West Burton Solar proposal, at over 2,000 acres, combined with the other 3 proposals have a cumulative effect of 10,000 acres of farmland lost and the industrialisation of the area as a whole. Food security is now a big issue and the government is changing its stance, wanting more productive farmland, not less (see the Government Food Strategy document June 2022). Over the previous 40 years we have gone from producing 78% of our own food down to 64% and the cost of importing food is increasing all the time. To lose 10,000 acres (in total) of good arable land is ridiculous. Rishi Sunak says those fields should be bulging with “fantastic produce” and we must “not lose swathes of our best farmland to solar farms”. Jeremy Hunt is pushing to speed up planning permission for nuclear power plants and offshore wind to boost growth and bring down energy bills. In the UK, solar panels produce on average around 11% of their rated output – and they produce most of that power on sunny, summer days when we least need it. When demand is at its highest, on winter evenings, they produce nothing at all. The government has just approved Sizewell C . Nuclear is the only form of reliable, low carbon electricity generation which has been proven at scale and returns more than 100 times as much power as a solar site of the same size. This will increase civil nuclear power to up to 24GW by 2050 – 3 times more than now and representing up to 25% of projected electricity demand. Now small reactors are all the rage again. This time they are being touted as powerful potential weapons in the fight against climate change. Governments around the world are investing billions of pounds to push ahead with new designs. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, used the budget to announce a competition to select a design for a small modular reactor — an SMR — for use in the UK and said he wanted nuclear to provide one quarter of electricity by 2050, up from the 15 per cent provided by the current plants. Solar farms should be located on brownfield sites, not greenfield, and solar panels be compulsory on all new build commercial and residential buildings. Solar farms will destroy agricultural jobs, skills and livelihoods and create very few new skilled jobs or replace livelihoods. Most of the equipment is likely to be manufactured in China and non-local labour used in construction. It is likely there will be a likely net reduction in employment, in an area with relatively few opportunities. There will not be any economic benefit to the communities affected. No matter what precautions and assurances, it will not be possible to deliver and install millions of solar panels, pour thousands of tonnes of concrete, as well as containers with batteries and switchgear, all surrounded by miles of fencing, without damaging habitat. And this construction would take up to 4 years to complete. Much of the construction traffic will still be using single track country lanes which are already in a poor condition. It also raises concerns over the risks to pedestrians, cyclists, horses, wildlife and other traffic. The cumulative scale of the development is unprecedented, and the impact of such a development would change the character and nature of the area for 50 years or more, such a change has the potential to have a significant detrimental impact on the general health and wellbeing of residents. On this site alone there would be 2,000 acres of solar panels which would change the landscape totally and would destroy the scenic beauty of the area. I strongly urge that this proposal be rejected.