By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
The public gallery erupted in applause as district planners rejected a solar farm bid this week amid fears the Severn Vale has become a “dumping ground” for development.
PACE Tribute Energy Ltd’s plans for a 49.5 megawatt photovoltaic array on around 120 acres of fields some 400 yards from the River Severn in Epney were considered by Stroud District Council.
The scheme, near the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal and Stroudwater Navigation junction at Saul, included south facing solar arrays of up to 9.8ft tall with some inverters placed in between them and a substation and grid connection compound.
Fretherne with Saul, Longney and Epney, Frampton-on-Severn and Arlingham parish councils all objected to the proposals along with the county highways department, the South Cotswold Ramblers and more than 200 residents.
District Council officers told the development control committee on December 3 that they recommended refusal amid concerns over the grid connection compound which would introduce an “alien, overbearing and unsympathetic feature” in the Severn Vale grazing marshland landscape.
They also raised concerns that insufficient information had been submitted to demonstrate how it would improve biodiversity, and how it would impact protected habitat sites.
Information which demonstrated how conflicts between construction traffic and other road users would be mitigated was also lacking.
Conservative councillor Robert Brown (Severn), who represents the area at Ebley Mill, spoke against the proposals during the meeting.
He outlined three main reasons for planning permission to be refused among which was the impact it would have on the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal.
“It would cause serious and unjustifiable visual harm to one of the district’s most valuable heritage sites,” he said.
“The development sits alongside the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal in the vicinity of Saul junction which is identified in the 2015 local plan as an important visitor gateway to the Cotswold Canals and the wider district.”
Cllr Brown said it was a protected heritage landscape that has benefited from decades of “dedicated” restoration and public funding.
He also said the local roads could not handle the construction traffic and would overburden an already overburdened area with another solar farm.
Fretherne with Saul Parish Councillor Andrew Brown also spoke against the proposals which the village is “overwhelmingly” opposed to.
He said 99 per cent of residents who took part in a poll said they were against the scheme.
“Our parish supports renewable energy,” he said. “What we cannot support is industrial scale development in the wrong place.”
He said the fields were “not empty” but ]habitats for skylark, curlew, otters, badgers and several bat species.
Councillor Roger Godwin, of Longney and Epney Parish Council, also spoke against the scheme and said “most of his thunder had already been stolen”.
He said parish council recognises the importance of renewable energy but the Severn Vale “had become the dumping ground of Gloucestershire”.
“With transport links off the M5, Cotswold National Landscape, Gloucestershire having to take its fair share of national housing targets, industrial development and green energy, our small parishes are bearing a disproportionate share of the burden.”
Landowner Tricia Griffiths said her family had farmed in the county for four generations adapting to the many challenges.
She said they have run a beef rearing enterprise over the last 40 years and the solar farm is needed to secure the farm’s future.
“We currently farm around 600 acres and introducing solar across 100 of these will give us a reliable, stable income,” she said.
“This is vital for securing the future of our family farm for our two sons who both work with us and hope to carry the business forward especially as they now face the new farming inheritance tax costs.”
She said the solar farm would allow them to diversify into sheep which would graze below the photovoltaic panels.
Callum Wright, the planning manager for PACE, said the issues with application were procedural and that the evidence has not been accepted by the planning authority
He said they believe the visual impact of the grid mast is limited and manageable.
And he said they submitted updated plans to address the concerns over the riparian river buffer and ecological surveys of wintering birds.
Mr Wright also said they were happy to conduct a highways safety survey.
During the debate, Councillor John Callinan (L, Stonehouse) said it made “no sense at all” to put an electrical substation on a floodplain and he would be supporting refusal.
And Cllr Moya Shannon (G, Severn) said she too would be voting for refusal due to flooding and transport concerns.
While Helen Fenton (G, Chalford) echoed concerns and said there was an issue around cumulative development of solar sites and likened it to the proliferation of intensive chicken farms in the River Wye catchment area.
“My understanding is the local planning authorities approved each chicken farm incrementally because they felt they could only take a decision based on the application in front of them,” she said,
“[…] one by one, that was OK but eventually that became too much for the river.”
The committee voted unanimously to reject the plans in line with the officer’s recommendations.