Plans for the huge solar farm on the Romney Marsh near Camber are out for consultation again. The South Brooks proposals have been reduced in size by 20% following discussions last year but will still see hundreds of hectares of land covered in the new panels along with a new battery storage plant at Dungeness.
The South Brooks Solar Farm is being put forward by EDF and PS Renewables, and while the main site is just north of Camber there are other pieces of land connected to the project around Lydd. It is one of a number of solar farms planned for the Romney Marsh.
The new site could produce electricity for 140,000 homes. Matt Hazell, co-founder and director of PS Renewables said, “By making best use of available grid capacity in the area, the South Brooks project would deliver substantial benefits for the environment and the local area. I encourage everyone to review the updated plans, meet with the team and share their comments.”
Plans will be officially submitted next year. A decision on the project will be made by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero as the project is classified as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project.
The reduction in the size of the proposed solar farm hasn’t convinced campaigners. Amanda Farrant, co-director of Hands Off Our Marsh, said, “We’re being offered a say on how to soften the damage, not whether the damage should happen. That is not local democracy. It is consultation without consent. We are asking for a real say in whether this should happen here at all and whether this marsh land we call home is even appropriate for such vast infrastructure.”
The proposals for the new solar farm were also roundly condemned by Rye Town Council’s Planning and Townscape meeting on Monday 8 June. Councillors agreed to lodge an objection to the plans.
“I stand 100% against this desecration,” said Councillor Fiddimore. “The wild, windswept flat landscape will be ruined.”
“It’s absolutely massive,” said Councillor Rogers. “There are better places for it rather than pasture land. It is just wrong.”
“A beautiful landscape wrecked,” said Mayor Chris Hoggart. “It is an enormous area and wrong to experiment on such a vast scale,” said Councillor Stuart. “It will be a tragedy for wildlife,” said Councillor Hughes.
Two public meetings are being held in coming weeks:
- Friday 3 July (4pm to 7pm) – Camber Memorial Hall, Lydd Road, Camber, TN31 7RJ
- Saturday 4 July (11am to 3pm) – Lydd Community Hall, Manor Road, Lydd TN29 9HU
The consultation runs until 9 July. You can find more details here.
Image Credits: Pixabay via Picryl.com https://picryl.com/media/alternative-cell-clean-science-technology-78f4c9 CC https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/, Hands off Our Marsh .
Land-based solar is always contentious. Yes the landscape changes. Yes productive farmland changes. But solar is fast becoming the cheapest way of generating clean energy, locally, and as the world heats up, one of the few side benefits is more sun! Plus it works in winter. All that said, I do get it that a massive sprawl across an area like this is not ideal. What we’re missing is the smarter way that other countries are installing solar. In Germany it is now on fences. An energy generating fence! On industrial rooftops. On car parks – forming shade cover for parked cars, alongside charge points for EVs. And lots of countries now have plug-in panels while we crawl slowly towards the goal of applying safety regs so we can too. So there are alternatives, which work just as well if only we were as imaginative as other countries.
I suppose it’s a bit like ‘not in my backyard’ and even though I am a huge supporter of ecologically safe energy sources, this one seems to remove beautiful and precious countryside settings which are slowly vanishing all across the UK. Many years ago there was tremendous opposition to the wind turbines in the marsh. They have, however, produced substantial energy and have a kind of graceful beauty. They also leave plenty of natural space around them and, in my opinion, are more desirable. We need to both reduce our energy consumption (very difficult to do) and look for more home-grown sources other than fossil fuels.
After doing a bit of research I found the following information:
Wind Power: Wind turbines are highly efficient on a large scale, especially offshore, because wind can blow day and night but they are also high effective on land. In the UK, for example, wind contributes 30% of total electricity generation compared to solar’s 6.5%.
Solar Power: Solar panels have a more limited timeframe for generating peak energy (daylight hours only). However, solar is much more versatile, highly scalable, and equally effective for both small residential use and massive commercial farms.
There are pluses and minuses to all energy sources but I’d prefer to see wind turbines on land and offshore and I hope these will be considered.
Couldn’t the money be spent on grants for roof top solar panels for every building, covered car park, bus shelter, etc., and leave the countryside to nature?
The real facts are that solar farms are certainly not the most cost efficient way to produce energy and “save the planet”. Firstly, they are very “dirty” to produce causing untold pollution in China where of course they are produced. They also have a fairly short shelf life before they have to be replaced and the old ones are not biodegradable and will end up
in vast land fills. Also, they do not work very well in winter and do not work at all at night, the are extremely inefficient in that way.
The damage to this unique, beautiful landscape will never be able to be returned to what it is now, it will be ruinous for the natural world that we all say we love so much. What should happen is that a small nuclear power station (built by Rolls Royce) should be built on the exiting site at Dungeness using all the infrastructure that is already in place. That would take care of most of the power needs for the entire south eastern area, no more wind turbines, no more solar panels, just some common sense and proper forward planning, it’s not that hard. But that is not what the idealists want is it, we are to be subjected to have a ruinous policy dumped on us just because a group of politicians think it’s a good idea. I for one think it is an abomination and will do all I can to stop it.
Janet – what money do you mean? But yes, in principle it’s a great idea to install solar panels everywhere you suggest. And yes, we are short of nature and getting shorter so ideally we’d do exactly what you say. The return on investment is actually quite good – in the southeast the average payback (i.e. break-even) is 6 to 10 years so it’s a good investment. After that you’re ahead. So the question is who provides the capex for public space installations. For private homes and undustry (rooftops etc) it has to be the owner. It’s well worth it.