Council’s shock at solar farm go-ahead

The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband MP, today announced that approval had been granted for the Development Consent Order, as proposed by Sunnica.

The project will see 2,792 acres of solar panels and battery storage, installed across parts of West Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

Councillor Richard Rout, Suffolk County Council’s Deputy Cabinet Member for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, said:

“The approval of this solar farm is a massive blow to local communities, agriculture, nature and our landscape in the west of Suffolk.

“I am frankly shocked that the poorest infrastructure application that I have ever dealt with, has now been approved - we highlighted numerous deficiencies in the submission.

“The voices of thousands of local residents, businesses and organisations have not been listened to. This scheme will permanently and detrimentally impact the landscape of a vast part of West Suffolk and remove thousands of acres of land from food production.

“Despite some improvements to the initial application, we felt that the proposals did not meet the standards we, and local communities, would expect from a project on this scale. Local residents will quite rightly be asking what it takes for a project to be refused, when the worst project we have dealt with gets consented in the face of so much opposition.”

Suffolk County Council supports national aims to adapt to climate change and provide low carbon energy for the country, which often bring benefits to support the local economy. However it also has an ambition to protect and enhance Suffolk’s communities and environment.

The council had many issues with the application, including:

• The geographic scale of the proposal which will permanently transform the landscape
• The impact on local communities of the 24 month construction period
• Sunnica’s serious shortcomings in terms of both evidence and methodology
• Sunnica’s presentation of proposal which made it, and impacts on local communities, unclear
• Mitigation proposals did not appear to be tailored to the local context

Time will now be spent reviewing the final decision and engaging with the local community.