Eric Pickles, the secretary of State for the Communities, is being asked to call in plans for the biggest Solar farm in the country — the size of a small village or 100 football pitches — proposed for an area of outstanding natural beauty.
The project is proposed by Swindon Commercial Services, a wholly owned company of Swindon Borough Council, and will take up most of the former RAF Aerodrome between Wroughton and Chiseldon which is now owned by the Science Museum who have teamed up with SCS to develop the project.
The site is within the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Beauty (AONB) whose officers are charged with protecting – and enhancing this area.
The scale of the development at 80.5 hectares in area is larger than the nearby village of Chiseldon, population around 2,600. The site will be particularly visible from the Ridgeway National Trail, described as the country’s oldest road, Barbury Castle Iron Age hill fort and Swindon Borough Council’s own Barbury Castle Country Park and the surrounding rights of way.
With around 150,000 proposed ground-mounted PV arrays producing around 41MW, the project’s supporters say it will be a major contributor to renewable energy resources.
But officers of AONB which holds responsibility for an area of 1,730 kilometres (668 square miles) in Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire, has called the proposed development unprecedented and likely to cause signigicant harm to the character and appearance of the landscape.
Henry Oliver, AONB director, says the location of the proposed solar farm is completely nonsensical and ‘strikes at the heart of our stunning and fragile landscape.’
The AONB has noted that although renewable energy production is in the public interest, AONBs have the highest status of landscape protection and their conservation and enhancement is also in the public interest.
Andrew Lord, AONB Planning Adviser told Marlborough News Online: “We are satisfied that renewable needs can be met from suitable sites outside protected landscapes or from carefully designed schemes within protected landscapesnat an appropriate scale of which there are many well concealed examples.”
“However, this proposal at 80.5 hectares will completely change the character of the landscape and is looked onto and into from many publc viewpoints.”
Mr Lord has called on the Secretary of State to intervene if the plan gets the go-ahead from Swindon councillors. Specifically it has requested the application should be “called in” due to its size, location in an AONB contrary to national policy, Swindon Borough Council’s own planning policy and the Council’s own interest in the application.
Mr Lord said: “The AONB Unit consider in this case the significant harm to the character and appearance of the AONB and its component heritage assets would be unacceptable and overriding. These adverse effects would significantly and demonstrably outweigh any benefits from the scheme.”
Mr Lord added: “It is particularly disappointing that Swindon Commercial Services have chosen to site this development in the one part of the Borough which is nationally and indeed internationally recognised for the quality of its landscape.
“We are often told that a significant reason why companies choose to locate in Swindon is because of the quality of its surrounding countryside. Most of the Borough is not within the AONB, so avoidance of this protected landscape is an option which has not been properly considered.”
Charity runners take on the Barbury Horse Trials’ cross country course
