Representation by Miss Amy Hardy
- Date submitted
- 1 March 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
When I first heard about this project, I thought 'What a great idea, solar panels are a fantastic way to generate power without having to burn fossil fuels'. Then, several months later, I realised that this wasn't quite the full story and there are many implications to installing solar panels the way that this proposed project is planning on doing. 1. There are acres and acres of rooftops, domestic roofs and industrial sized rooftops which can house solar panels without having to use farmland. Furthermore, thousands of domestic houses are being built each year in this country - would it not be a better idea to make their rooftops useful and have legislation in place to make it mandatory for every new housing estate to have a certain number of solar panels? 2. Farmland is there for a reason, it has been there for hundreds, if not thousands of years for one purpose only - to make food to feed the people and farm animals of this country and the world. I believe that it should stay this way. Why ruin perfectly good farmland, if there is an alternative space to put solar panels - rooftops. The farmland you propose to utilise may be of a lower grade soil, however, we must ask ourselves, why is it of lower grade? Most likely because of all of the chemicals and pesticides that farmers have to put on the crops these days. The land deserves a rest in order to revive itself to its former glory - to re-wild. Simply giving up on it, because of man made reasons, is not a good solution. Covered by solar panels to starve it of sunlight and surrounded by un-natural electromagnetic frequencies from all of the equipment will not allow it to recover, only perish. This, is an environmental issue as the biodiversity of the land is at stake. 3. Harmful to wildlife. These solar panels and the equipment associated with them, including the batteries give off a huge amount of electromagnetic frequencies which are un natural to the environment and may deter wildlife to that area. Native wildlife, that has lived very happily on that land for many, many years, may be forced to re-locate, or worse, may die, threatening the biodiversity and natural balance of the land. This may create a domino effect on the landscape, the damage of which we cannot predict. We do not know the full extent of damage that this proposed project may cause, but referring back to my point above, why threaten or even gamble on the huge damaging affect that this project may have on native wildlife, when there is another option - rooftops! 4. The size of the solar panels. These solar panels are huge, there is no doubt about that. Not only are they huge, but they are not efficient or made in this country. They will be a blot on the landscape, affecting aesthetic viewpoints for miles around. Visual pollution. Again, why place ugly and large solar panels in the beautiful countryside, when there are acres and acres of rooftops in cities, towns and most likely a lot of space at Cottam Powerstation itself!! 5. What is the benefit for the local people? Yes, I could possibly see the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel for this project if there was but an ounce of hope that the local people would benefit. But alas, this is not the case. Soaring energy prices, and the lowering of wholesale energy only makes the general domestic homeowner poorer and the larger corporations richer. If you are proposing to take our landscape, lower our house prices in the making, disturbing the biodiversity of the land and allowing the generation of powerful EMF's near our homes,to name but a few issues...the LEAST you could do is offer us cheaper energy bills. If this was the case, I would offer my roof to house the solar panels. I would like to ask the person/people who are the brains behind this project if they are offering up the land around their home to house these solar panels? Although, I can imagine that the answer is no. 6. Huge impact on local roads for 3 years. This project is going to take roughly 3 years to complete. In this time, hundreds of heavy duty vehicles are going to be trundling through small villages and single track roads. Not only will this be of huge hindrance to the local people, but it has the potential to cause damage to the roads that were not built for this level of activity and to the wildlife and biodiversity of the verges. 7. Lowering of house prices. Would you like to live in a house surrounded by hundreds of massive solar panels, or even next to a field full of batteries? I thought not. Neither do we. Our houses are going to struggle to sell and the prices of the houses are going to drop. These are the houses that we have worked tremendously hard to buy and maintain. Why not use rooftops? 8. Surge in mental health issues. If you had worked your entire life, slogged away at a job in order to retire or to afford a beautiful countryside home, surrounded by fields and wildlife, only to realise that the local Powerstation were hoping to surround you with solar panels and batteries...would you be annoyed? The mere thought of this proposal for many homeowners could have a significant impact on their mental health. The sinking feeling that your once beautiful outlook from your living room window could potentially be blinding from the glare of the sun shining from one of these panels. Or the acres of fencing surrounding the fields with prison style lighting in the evenings. The dread of your house price lowering, or the sense of feeling trapped - no one will ever want to buy our home surrounded by solar panels! Mental health issues are surging at the moment - don't let this project be another reason for more people to suffer and not benefit in ANY way. There is another solution - rooftops! 9. What is the longevity of these projects? Who is to say that the low efficiency of these panels render the investors short of money and they sell the project off to another company, potentially in another country. Who will maintain the solar panels? Who will clear up the mess if the project is left deserted in the future? A disconnected solar panel on a rooftop would not look so bad, but acres of broken, unmaintained solar panels in our countryside...would look horrific. This is NOT okay. 10. What is the longevity of the solar panels themselves and the batteries? Where will they be disposed of? Lithium batteries are tremendously damaging, and even more so when they are disposed of. How can you ensure that this will not be the case? The local people are not happy about this project. I urge you to see it from our perspective. How would you feel if this project was surrounding your home? There is another solution. I urge you to work with the local people to find a solution that will benefit ALL. Not just the corporations. Would you want to give up your beautiful countryside view and not even have any benefit at all? This is not fair, or moral for anyone.