Representation by Graeme William Bowes
- Date submitted
- 10 April 2024
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I have great concerns about productive farmland being taken out of use to provide solar farms. Farmers should be producing food to reduce the country's dependence on imported food, especially from countries who do not have the same high and rigorously policed standards that we do. The proposed project in addition to all the local solar schemes will result in over 2000 acres of farmland being taken out of production. The countryside will be ruined; wildlife habitats will disappear along with the wildlife, and countryside views will no longer exist. Local residents including myself will be significantly affected by the preparations for and installation of the solar panels as the sites are so close to homes and local villages. The increase in traffic will be significant on local roads which are already poorly maintained and we have already seen how badly the roads are damaged and the amount of dirt and mud left on them at a local smaller solar development nearby. We then all face many, many years of looking at huge solar panels instead of the countryside we have always enjoyed. The proposal includes footpaths around the sites of the solar panels; where will people park who come to walk along these footpaths? I live directly opposite one of the proposed sites and worry that gateways will be blocked or people will park on the road or grass verge (if there is one) making everyday life very difficult for farmers and residents alike and increasing the likelihood of accidents along roads which contain numerous bends. Solar panels should have been made compulsory on all new build housing and industrial developments many years ago rather than now reducing the country's capacity to produce food and ruining the countryside for the forseeable future.