Representation by Marcus Charles Lawrence
- Date submitted
- 11 September 2024
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I wish to register as an interested party and state my objections to the planning application. In general terms, the Labour party has indicated a change to planning policy for housing so there is an expectation of building growth and if Brownfield sites are not available, then the likelihood is that Greenfield sites will be selected and built over. If we factor in the increasing population, to lose productive arable to both housing and solar industrialisation will leave this country with a shortage of land to produce crops. We have seen the impact of the war in the Ukraine and Covid on the availability and price of food, we need to reduce dependency on overseas food as far as we can. I am not objecting to renewable energy sources, but there must be better and more efficient ways than digging up the countryside and covering land amounting to a size of 250 football pitches. A few miles east the proposed site there is the “Otterpool” development due to start, this will feature 8500 homes, so that is 17000 roof spaces on which to place the photo-voltaic panels. With the additional extensive building in the Ashford area, a mandated policy of enforcing new builds requiring “solar panels” will meet the renewable energy needs, while maintaining the use of arable land for food. The planning application appears to mislead or gloss over key aspects that would have a detrimental effect on the eco-system and community as a whole. We know from previous experiences when building takes place the road network is chaotic, there is no open access to the proposed site, as in all directions there are pinch points in the village. The traffic management plan ignores this. We have had several fatalities on the A20 Smeeth Crossroads, this is a dangerous junction that cannot be brushed aside. The suggestion to bus the workers to the site is laughable and highlights the contempt the developer is treating the community with this application. The design of the site has hundreds of panels, but what about the handling of the batteries? 27 battery enclosures, 40 shipping container sized building, acoustic fences (which won’t stop sound going up from line of sight) and then water towers for fire prevention! The applicants have refused to answer the reasonable questions on the battery issues, is this because they know of the impact and risk? The site of the panels is in part of the flood plain, water and electricity are not good companions. For the building applications in the village the developers were instructed to ensure the retention of the Public Rights of Way, yet this application ignores the impact of the extensive ancestral network. Are they only going to look at PRWs within the boundaries of the application, what about the connecting networks outside, will they all need to be rerouted? Countryside will be destroyed, wildlife will be destroyed, a community impacted for 40 years without benefit. This is an easy decision, just say No.