Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Go-ahead for huge solar farm despite objections
COUNCILLORS have approved plans for a huge solar farm despite more than 100 objections, “corruption” fears and claims it will risk school children’s road safety.
South Gloucestershire Council development management committee granted permission by 6-3 votes to create the new plant across 15 agricultural fields at Varley Farm in Talbots End, between Wickwar Quarry and the B4058 Bristol Road, near Cromhall.
But a resident accused the local authority of “blindly” accepting a report commissioned by the applicants, multinational company RES Group (Renewable Energy Systems), that downgraded the quality of the farmland using a method he claimed to be “totally bogus”, saying this made it “open to corruption”.
Planning officers, who recommended giving the plans the goahead, insisted the findings were from an independent study by government-backed experts.
Speaking on behalf of the 122 residents who objected to the development, qualified surveyor Cyrus Contractor told the meeting on Thursday that RES was a massive, “bullying” firm with a £1 billion annual turnover that would just sell off the land to make money.
He said: “They are highly experienced at planning and defeating us irritating little locals who care about boring things like our green village, communities, our children getting to school safely, heritage, as well as global issues like climate change.
“I am convinced that RES has absolutely no interest in climate change - solar farms are just a way to make more money.
“They are simply creating an asset to sell off to the highest bidder.
“There is no benefit to the local community whatsoever - the electricity produced will just be exported to the National Grid.
“The community suffers all of the downsides and none of the upsides.
“Our village is a thriving and historic agricultural village.
“We should not be forced to surrender productive farmland to a highly aggressive and commercial power company, bullying its way across the world with its money and influence.”
Mr Contractor said the council’s declaration of a climate emergency meant it shared the same goals as RES and so could not be neutral in determining the proposals.
He said: “There is a deep conflict of interest in this application’s assessment and it shows up very clearly in the planning officer’s recommendation and report [which] excludes the conservation officer’s recommendation to refuse the application due to the damage to the setting of four listed buildings.
“The agricultural land classification consultant, paid for by the developer, has selected a methodology that makes their classification completely personal and optional.
“Surprise, surprise, it then turns out that the land has now mysteriously become of a much lower grade.
“To achieve this lower grading, the developer and the consultant have used a totally bogus methodology, and the local planning authority has blindly accepted it.
“There is no other word for it - it is a racket.
“This is not just insulting to the village, it is insulting to this committee to be fobbed off with a document that is so open to corruption.”
Cromhall parish councillor Daren
Jeffery said: “We strongly object to the construction of Varley Solar Farm.
“It will have an overall negative impact on the immediate neighbours to the site, the village and the wider community.”
He said children were dropped off from the school bus and walked home along Farleigh Lane, a twisty, rural road, and that the addition of lorries going in and out of the site during construction was a “deathtrap waiting to happen”.
But senior planning officer Rae Mepham said the plans were acceptable, including road safety, and that the benefits outweighed the harms.
She said the agricultural land was re-graded because the previous analysis was carried out in the 1980s, which at the time did not include as many categories of soil quality.
Ms Mepham said the work was done by an independent, qualified company using a Defra-approved rating system.
RES Group project manager Bertrand Devossel said the scheme would save 600,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions over its lifetime, while 100 new trees and a kilometre of hedgerows would be planted.
He said 90 per cent of the land was not classified as “best and most versatile”.