Solar panels could help power Guys Marsh Prison
The Ministry of Justice have submitted a planning application to put an acre of solar panels up at Guys Marsh near Shaftesbury
ALMOST an acre of prison grounds at Guy’s Marsh is likely to be used for solar panels – enough to provide energy for the majority of its daytime use.
Dorset Council has received a planning request from the Ministry of Justice to install ground solar panels on a field south of the main prison complex to generate 112kW of power.
A Ministry of Justice request asks the council for what is known as a “lawful development certificate” which means that the prison will not need to go through the normal planning process because, it believes, the proposal comes under the rules for permitted development.
It says the panels will produce enough power for 75% of the site’s minimum daytime use and almost ten per cent of the prison’s annual energy use.
It is proposing 90 solar panel arrays in seven large rows together with a 100kW inverter and other equipment, all surrounded by a deer-proof fence and linking in to the prison’s main switchroom.
The Ministry says it will improve the habitat of the site by additional grass planting and the planting of native trees to reinforce the existing hedgerow. Bat and bird boxes will also be distributed across the site.
The request to Dorset Council says that the solar panels do not need foundations and can be removed from the area at the end of their operational life which can be anywhere between 25 and 40 years.
The application comes after the Ministry was given Government funding to help cut its carbon emissions as part of the pledge to become net zero by 2050.
As the second largest Government estate prisons and justice buildings account for more than 20% of central Government’s total greenhouse gas emissions, which it is aiming to reduce by the end of March 2022.
The Ministry has reminded Dorset Council that it is still waiting for a decision on a redevelopment planning application it submitted for Guy’s Marsh in September 2019.
It asks to demolish a redundant sports pavilion, workshop, IT portacabins and the Wessex Building, erecting in its place two 2-storey houseblocks, a new workshop, office accommodation for offender management, an extension to a gym building and a new all-weather sports pitch with secure perimeter fencing, as well as the construction of a control and restraint unit.