Plans for a new solar farm on the Isle of Wight — which could generate enough energy for around 9,300 homes — could be given the green light later today (Tuesday).
The proposed Barnfield Solar Farm has been met with fierce opposition, with more than 100 objections from residents, the Island’s MP and local town and parish councils, although IW Council planning officers recommend its approval.
Objectors argue there will be zero local benefits, and that the solar farm would be visually intrusive, change the character of a country lane, increase the risk of flooding and mean it is more likely pollution could enter Barnfields Stream and Yarmouth Estuary.
Bob Seely MP called the plan inappropriate for the site, citing an ‘industrial character incompatible with the rural setting.’ However, the National Trust is supporting the plans, saying it would provide much-needed green energy that would be well-screened from the eyes of local residents.
Another 40 supportive comments have also been submitted to the Isle of Wight Council.
Concerns about the security measures been raised by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary’s Designing Out Crime Officer, who says thefts from solar farms have sharply increased. Along with solar panels, CCTV cameras, perimeter fences, inverters and transformers would be installed.
Officers said the solar farm would result in significant positive economic, social and environmental benefits, outweighing the minimal to moderate negative impacts. Those negative impacts, the officers say, would be a loss of both ‘moderate to good’ quality agricultural land and a section of public right of way.
Recommended approval is subject to 21 conditions; including tree protection measures, the enhancement of the public footpath and installing security measures. The solar farm is planned for the outskirts of Yarmouth, next to the Wilmingham Solar Farm, on Wilmingham Lane, near Thorley, and would operate for 40 years.
It has reduced in size since the plans were first submitted, by Low Carbon UK, but could still produce approximately 28 megawatts a year, exported to the network via Shalfleet Substation.
Woke leftists! We don’t want solar! It doesn’t work at night, it doesn’t in winter! We want coal power!
Are these 9300 homes here on the island? Are there actually any benefits for the Island? … and at the end of this ‘Temporary Development’ – Another developers ruse to change the land designation from green to brown because it has been previously developed?
Much better than building houses on the land
But it is NOT instead of, but as well as building houses then elsewhere.
No small wonder our country is being destroyed with small minded thoughtless people only seeing an issue when it is too late.
We need to end the huge amount of arrivals to the UK to ease the burden that then many indigenous people, understandably then migrate to places like the Island to escape areas they no longer feel safe, or comfortable living in because of the former.
So this building and energy need is an indirect consequence of such, but as we see, many only ‘think’ one step ahead, much to the Councils and Governments delight.
I 100% fully agree with you
But if its not solar it will be housing and id rather it be solar than a load more poorly built boxes
How about neither options ? They both defile land that could provide localised food production.Pasture raised poultry etc ?
Most definitely yes
But I think we all know it’s going to be destroyed one way or another
Ban it. The far greener option is to end flotsam thus reducing the flow of the indigenous feeling and having the ‘need’ to escape to places like the Island, thus understandably adding to more houses covering green fields and the need for more energy.
Stop and return the cause of so much of the UK’s housing, vast energy needs, traffic, landfill, doctors, hospitals ills without causing any harm to our people or our rapidly vanishing green fields with all the countless insects, flowers and plants which are the base line of the food chain.
I am a supporter of green energy – BUT –
Solar panels have a fairly short life of 25-40 years, they are not economically recyclable, therefore it should be a pre-requisite of all solar farms that the owners of the panels, not necessarily the land owner, ARE LEGALLY REQUIRED to pay annually into an escrow account to cover the cost of removal of panels at the end of their life.
It is not unknown for limited companies who own panels to fold the company in year 24 !!
If the landowner is leasing land to a folded solar company then that poor landowner has a very expensive problem down the line. If previously farm land then he or she may also lose the inheritance tax agricultural exemption when leaving the land to their beneficiaries.
Could be worse Birmingham City Council due to the usual but unmentionable have bankrupted the Council.
It is not coincidence that a high proportion of residents have the same traits, adding to overcrowding, crime, poverty with massive benefits fraud and claims and misery as other areas anywhere on the globe wherever they choose to settle.
So that will be when the Island’s real problems begin.
Not a popular take but nonetheless true it’s just no one of authority or the media can say so anymore.
I see bob does not want it is it to close to his home shame we get no support from my local MP on houses this side of the island we dont want so build the solar farm and make it nice and big
Bob Seely says it is incompatible with the site !!!
Drive around the island, look at all the rabbit hutches being built ,and the one’s already built …..
Totally incompatible with our Greenfield sites, the concrete jungle jigsaw is totally incompatible with our little island
And totally incompatible with our infrastructure …
Solar will at least be productive, and it does work in winter as well .
We don’t want solar panels, it uses up land that could be used for food. Originally when solar panels were put in green fields it was said that sheep could graze between them. What a joke. Just one big NO ti solar panels in fields
We do not need more houses built either, the sewage system is not coping, the hospital, we only have one, isn’t coping and nor are the GP surgeries and lastly schools aren’t coping.
How on earth can solar panels pose a flood risk, create a danger of polution and be of 0 benefit to the island. These objectors need some education surely ? along anyone who agrees with them. The benefits must surely outway the slight problem of visual intrusion that some may feel but even that could be mitigated by careful landscaping. It’s a no brainer isn’t it ?.
Your’e right, it is a no brainer, as in no way should it go through in any shape or form.
“Contrary to earlier assumptions,” the Stuttgart Institute study said, “the result shows that pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater.” When solar panels are damaged by weather, mishandling, or improper disposal, these chemicals can leach into the water and soil.
Solar panels have a relatively short lifespan of 20 to 30 years, compared to the 50-year life cycle of a coal plant or the 80-year life of a nuclear facility.
NOOO Solar is disgusting and a waste of land. Future pictures of the island will be covered in big black patches.
Build wind farms, they look nice and you can farm the land around them