Representation by Philip Bambridge
- Date submitted
- 28 February 2024
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
The planning application will take a large amount of productive agricultural land out of production. This means a reduction in domestic agricultural output therefore more agricultural goods will have to be imported. This increases food miles, increases the carbon footprint and is environmentally damaging - the opposite of what the project is meant to achieve. The reduction in agricultural land increase strategic risk to the UK. More imported food means a greater reliance on imported food and therefore a greater exposure to fuel prices, conflicts etc. This makes the UK more vulnerable to external forces and influences. There will be a massive detrimental impact on wildlife. Large mammals (deer, foxes etc) will be excluded from large areas of their natural habitat with very few mitigations. This development has no realistic plan to reduce this impact - the huge fences are designed specifically to exclude wildlife and will change the natural structure of the flora and fauna irrevocably. This project claims to have environmental benefits at it's heart but it's scale will have exactly the opposite effect, thus removing it's rationale. This is a rural environment, a development of this scale will destroy that and turn it into an industrial zone. The road infrastructure is not suitable to support the construction work involved. The disruption and environmental damage will last for years both during and after the construction. People living in the area will be also be impacted permanently by increased constant noise levels from the solar farms and light pollution from the extensive compounds.