Large solar farm approved despite concerns over impact on countryside
Proposals for a massive solar farm have been approved despite one councillor saying it would be ‘an alien feature imposed on open countryside’.
RWE Renewables plan to create it on arable farmland off Stygate Lane, in Pickwell, with a capacity to power more than 25,000 local homes.
The 214-acre site is the largest part of the solar farm with a smaller adjoining portion close to Whissendine, which will be considered by Rutland planners at a later date.
Members of Melton Borough Council’s planning committee were divided over whether to approve the Pickwell site before giving it the green light 6-4 on votes.
The planning application had been deferred three times due to queries over whether the scheme scheme contravened the Somerby Neighbourhood Plan.
Officers felt it was acceptable according to the borough’s planning policies but several councillors were unhappy about the impact it would have on a attractive rural area.
Ward councillor, Leigh Higgins, submitted a statement to the committee in which he wrote that he was representing the views of Pickwell, Leesthorpe and Cold Overton who remained ‘deeply concerned about the proposal’.
"This would represent industrial infrastructure and an alien feature imposed on open countryside,” his statement said.
"It would be visible on the approaches to Pickwell and Somerby and would be fundamentally out of keeping with the rural character of the area.”
His comments were echoed by Councillor Elaine Holmes, who told the meeting: “I don’t blame the farmers for having solar farms on their land because farming is at a very low ebb but I do not believe this one is in the right place.”
Daniel Corcoran, speaking for the applicants, said livestock grazing could continue on the site with grass growing among the three-metre-tall solar panels and that beekeeping could also be carried it with the two wildflowers meadows proposed at the Pickwell site.
"We should not be talking about the loss of farmland but instead this proposal would see farmland working twice as hard,” he told the committee.
Councillor James Mason said he ‘agonised’ over how to vote but he said the government’s support for solar farms would make it difficult to block it because ‘it will be absolutely inevitable that this solar farm will get built on appeal’.