Farmers protest against 'biggest solar farm' proposed for Cornwall
The council says they're "committed to making a carbon neutral Cornwall"
Farmers will be gathering today to protest against an area which will become the 'biggest solar farm in Cornwall' if approved.
Local rural residents will be campaigning outside New County Hall this morning (Thursday 21 November).
Residents of the Carland Cross area are fearful that if permission is granted for the 210-acre solar park it will severely impact food production, local businesses and the beauty of a sprawling green valley.
There are also concerns the 125,000-panel solar farm – which has previously been likened to a “glass and concrete prison” – will exacerbate flooding in an area which is already hit by run-off from fields during heavy rain. Around 300 people have commented against the scheme on Cornwall Council’s online planning portal.
Downing Renewable Developments LLP has applied for permission to build the farm, Fairpark, near the A30 between Carland Cross and Landrine. The energy facility, near Trispen and Mitchell, would have a generating capacity of 49.9MW and run for 30 years. Battery storage and inverters, sub-stations, security cameras, fencing, access tracks and landscaping are also proposed.
The application has been brought to an extraordinary meeting of Cornwall Council’s strategic planning committee next Thursday (November 21) by local councillor Karen Glasson due to concerns regarding the use of best and most versatile land, visual impact and effect on local business and residents.
The proposal has been opposed by four surrounding parish councils – St Enoder, Ladock, St Erme and St Newlyn East – for a variety of reasons, including its possible overbearing effect, loss of food security and visual impact.
The plan has been the subject of a great deal of opposition since it was first submitted two years ago. More than 100 concerned people, including farmers, attended a meeting at St Erme Community Centre earlier this year to air their worries about the proposal. Residents and business owners choked back tears as they told a packed meeting how they fear the giant solar park – a quarter of the size of Truro – could decimate hundreds of acres of countryside and ruin lives and businesses.
The company behind the plan says the solar farm would actually improve the countryside in the rural valley rather than ruin it. Following the public meeting, Ameet Juttla, from Downing Renewable Developments, told us: “It’s not a glass and concrete prison.
“We’ve taken the wildlife into consideration and undertaken all our ecological assessments, and any form of nesting and birds that are there will remain. Wildlife will still be able to remain underneath those panels and have a thriving area to live within, so it’s actually making it better.
“Our biodiversity net gain (BNG) is a 148 per cent increase, so habitats are improved rather than reduced. We’re going above and beyond BNG as the guidelines only set out a ten per cent increase.”
His colleague Matthew Bellward added: “We’ve done more than others would do, in terms of adding buffers to areas that may be of more concern to local residents. In addition to that, we’ve increased screening in those areas too by adding hedgerows.”
The company has promised that it will implement and maintain a drainage scheme which will reduce rather than increase likelihood of flooding.
However, a huge number of residents are not happy, particularly those who live within the U-shape the solar farm would create in the valley. I visited the area this week to speak to just a few of them, who say they will feel “imprisoned” within the thousands of solar panels.
Ken Evans runs Hendra Barns, a wedding and holiday lets business, with his wife Maggie. Their home and neighbouring wedding venue would be surrounded by the panels, which will be situated three metres from their lane, around and below their property, and then continue behind their house.
He said: “We hold up to 13 weddings a year but the solar farm has put paid to it. We’ve had to let the couples know what has been going on and they’ve got cold feet, so we’ve had to give them their deposits back. We’ve managed to keep hold of three out of eight this year. It’s been no help to our business at all – we can’t book weddings now.”
People staying in holiday rental properties on the site would look across to what Ken said would be an industrialised landscape surrounded by a two-metre high fence, which will take a year to construct.
Farmer Nik Dymond lives a couple of miles away from the site and will speak against the plans at next week’s meeting such is his concern about the loss of agricultural land in Cornwall to the growing number of solar farms. The Duchy now has more solar panels than anywhere else in the country.
He said: “Sadly, already too much prime farmland has been slain like a lamb on the alter of the council’s scramble to achieve its net zero ambition.
“When developers try and convince you that field scale solar needn’t compromise food production, they are blatantly misleading you. The reality that we must not ignore is that even where sheep are deployed, food production per hectare drops by 90 per cent from a conventional farming rotation.
“We have excellent, fertile farmland in this county. If the Cornish experienced food shortages it would be an absolute outrage. It is my sincere belief that as a peninsula county, furthest away from the distribution centres, food shortages are becoming ever more likely. Cornwall’s lights as exporters of renewable energy will never dim, but our population may well grow hungry.
“Whilst we are busy building houses and delivering large scale PV solar panels faster than any other county in the country we should look over our shoulder at those European countries with much higher food security values than our own who have decided to put an end to any solar development on farmland.”
Colin and Terri Howes live in a house at the bottom of the valley. “There’s a well-recorded flood plain here and the road floods regularly,” said Mr Howes. “It’s a scientific fact that water running off solar panels causes flooding. Our ground is prone to flooding anyway. It will put a tremendous strain on the area.”
They showed me film of water gushing down their road following heavy rainfall, bringing crops and potatoes from the fields with it. The couple said adding solar panels into the area will only exacerbate the situation as far down the valley as the village of Ladock.
Charlie Gould, a farmer who lives within the heart of the site, has myriad objections to the solar park but his main concern is also the loss of agricultural land. “If we don’t address it, we’re going to have a serious problem not too far down the line. We’re shouting about it and people should listen to farmers.
“We’re being encouraged to move away from petro-chemicals on the land, and rightly so, but by doing that and moving towards regenerative farming you’re going to need more land to produce less food. So we’re getting squeezed on all sides.”
We contacted Martyn Alvey, Cornwall Council’s portfolio holder for environment and climate change, for his views on the Fairpark application. He said: "I can only speak generally rather than on the specifics of this application as you will appreciate that this is a planning decision on which I am not involved.
"The starting point in my view – and reflected in my support of the motion brought to full council some months ago – is that our most productive farmland should not be turned into solar farms. This is a complex issue and the successful motion set in process a study into the economic role of Grade 3 land in Cornwall and the right balance between use of land for agriculture and solar farms with a view to the work commencing on the study early in the new year.
"This study will be used to inform the new Local Plan and must, of course, also consider developing national policy around solar farms."
Cllr Alvey added: "In my personal view there needs to be a separation between whole farm scale solar development, such as the proposal at Carland, which involve many tens of acres of Grade 3b land, and farmers investing in solar schemes with a land take of a few less productive ‘single digit’ percentage of their farm to support diversification and profitable food production on their farm holding."