Huntingdonshire District Council has received a "Scoping Opinion" for a 400-megawatt solar farm and energy storage facility on the outskirts of St Neots, which one Parish Council has described as “intrusive”.
The development, which is known as East Park Energy, will build up clean energy in the area near St Neots.
Brockwell Storage and Solar are seeking to create a solar farm with four separate sites across Pertenall right up to Eaton Socon. The sites would connect to the National Grid substation in Eaton Socon, and a battery storage facility would also be built.
400 megawatts of electricity would power around 108,000 homes – that is more homes than there are in Bedford.
The three metre high solar panels would be accompanied by a 12m high transformer which is set to be housed in a container, as well as several other units.
Great Staughton Parish Council have described the plans as “excessive and disproportionately large”, lamenting the solar farm’s close proximity to the village.
The farm will be spread across four sites, Sites A, B, C and D, are planned as follows:
Site A will see solar panels stretch across fields between Pertenhall and Riseley. Site B will cover Keysoe and Little Staughton. Site C will carry the panels from Great Staughton to the River Kym. Site D will cover the fields between Great Staughton and Hail Weston, which will then connect to the National Grid substation in Eaton Socon.
The development is categorised as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP). Any scheme which would provide more than 50 megawatts of energy is classified as NSIP. In this case, more than eight times the minimum megawattage would be provided.
As the scheme is an NSIP, it means that the final decision on the planning application is down to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, which is Ed Milliband.
Ben Obese-Jecty, MP for Huntingdon, said on BBC Politics Live: "The fact that people locally are opposed to it is irrelevant.
"It is going to be railroaded through because it is an NSIP and therefore it will be implemented across good quality farmland."
Local councils, like Huntingdonshire District Council, will be kept involved during the planning process but they will have no say in whether the application is approved or not.
The initial plans have been submitted to Huntingdonshire District Council for “consideration”.
East Park Energy has set out a timeline for the planning process. They intend to hold a statutory consultation in the autumn 2024 in the areas that will be affected by the solar farm.
The team intend to submit a formal planning application to the Planning Inspectorate in 2025. The application will then be judged to determine if it can proceed to the next stage.
Following the examination of the application, the developers are hopeful that if the application is approved, they will receive a formal decision by the middle of 2026.
After that, construction would commence from 2026 onwards.
To read more about the plans, you can visit the East Park Energy website.
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