Huge Fleckney solar farm approved despite local concerns

A huge solar farm stretching across seven fields near Fleckney has been given the go-ahead by councillors.

More than 103,000 solar panels will be set up on land which forms part of the Wistow Lodge Farm after the scheme was granted approval by Harborough District Council’s planning committee on Tuesday March 26.

The site, off Fleckney Road to the north-west of the village, will operate for 40 years once up and running before being returned to farmland, and is expected to generate enough electricity to power almost 13,500 Harborough district homes a year. Construction is expected to take between four and six months, with 9,670 two-way trips to and from the site expected in this period.

Once construction is complete, planning officers said vehicles visiting the site are expected to be “few and far between”. While the solar farm is in use, the fields will also be used for sheep grazing, plans showed, and the public rights of way in the area will be maintained.

Committee members praised the scheme for its green credentials. Councillor for Lubenham, Jo Asher, said: “I think we’re going to see more and more [developments like this] to get this renewable energy.

“These sort of things can’t go in towns, they need the space. I think while towns and villages are being built up and that’s not great for people, but houses are needed. But personally if that was me living there, I would rather have this than more houses. I think it would have less of an effect and it’s a lot more beneficial.

“I was pleased to see there will be more hedge planting, the hedges won’t be removed, there won’t be noise and it won’t massively impact the area because you’ll still get to walk in those fields, sheep can still graze in those fields.”

She added: “A lot of [our green space] is being built on and at least this [development] is giving something back to the environment. […] I think the good far outweighs the bad.”

Councillor for Lutterworth East David Gair also spoke in support of the development. He said: “Climate change has reached a crisis point. This is a small but essential contribution to combatting that.”

He said he sympathised with the concerns of the people living close to it, but felt “every effort has been made to face it away from where it would be easily seen”.

Concerns were raised at the meeting by the local parish council. Fleckney parish councillor Suzanne Wyche said the authority has three main objections to the scheme: landscaping, footpaths and scale.

The construction of the 92 hectare solar farm would “dramatically impact on this landscape” and would “cause irreversible damage to the land”, she said. She added there has been a number of large developments in the area in recent years which have “encroached” on the countryside and “urbanised” walking routes.

She said: “The rural and tranquil setting of Fleckney is rapidly being eroded. This development’s impact should be considered cumulatively with other ongoing, approved, developments as, when considered this way, the effects will become even more significant.”

“The site has intrinsic value to the community for its views, recreational accessibility and positive physical and mental well-being benefits, enhancing it’s value,” she added.

“The closeness of the developments to the footpaths will detract from the pleasure of walking in the open countryside and is an unacceptable feature of the proposal. The size of the development is such that it will be larger in size than Fleckney itself and it will come within 200 metres of residential properties in the village.

“It will provide a vast array of solar panels visibly from a number of vantage points and its hard to envisage how a proposal on this scale could be allowed to go ahead in such a rural location using valuable farmland.”

She called on the council to add a condition requiring the developer to contribute to community funds so the “benefits are not solely received by those with a commercial interest in the development”. However, planning officers for the district council advised this could not be added as a condition as it was outside the authority’s remit and would have to be negotiated between the parish and the applicant.

Ultimately, the planning committee agreed to approve the development with just the one elected member voting against it.