Ceann Comhairle among 50 objectors to €100m solar farm
TD claims concerns of residents ‘not without significant justification’
CEANN Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl has raised concerns over a planned €100million solar farm that is to span 318 acres of farmland in his native Kildare.
The Dunnstown solar farm plan by the Portlaoise-based EEL Mullacash Solar Ltd is to be constructed across 30 fields of agricultural land and is currently used for pastoral farming, four kilometres outside of Naas.
The solar farm is to produce 105MW of renewable power and a planning statement lodged with the application states that the proposed development ‘will generate a range of economic benefits both in terms of its construction and operation, generating jobs for installation, maintenance and its eventual remediation’.
However, Kildare County Council has received over 50 objections mainly from locals concerned over the impact of the solar farm and two other solar farms in the area that have already secured planning permission.
In his submission, Deputy Ó Fearghaíl – a Fianna Fáil TD for Kildare South – has told the council that ‘the concerns of local residents and stud farm owners are not without significant justification’.
He said: ‘To concentrate three large solar farms in one small geographical location and on topclass agricultural land seems to me to be an initiative that is hard, if not impossible, to justify.’
Mr Ó Fearghaíl has pointed out that the Kildare County Development Plan ‘has always given special protection to the bloodstock industry – given its enormous importance to the economy, both locally and nationally, and its significance in employment generation and highlighting the stature of the county, ie Kildare – the Thoroughbred County’.
Mr Ó Fearghaíl has told the council that in looking at this application, ‘I would ask you to consider any likely impact on the equine sector and that appropriate expert and scientific studies be undertaken in order to arrive at a sustainable conclusion’.
The Punchestown Area Community Group claims that the solar farm will comprise of a further 200,000 solar panels on grassland and will be located only 300 metres from the Gowran Grange Swordlestown solar farm.
The community group states that the total number of solar panels from the three solar farms totals 800,000. The submission says that ‘the members of our group are very concerned at the over-concentration of planned solar farms in our area’.
The group says the three combined farms ‘would be a large sprawling solar farm on the doorstep of Punchestown’, adding: ‘This could seriously detract from the jewel in the crown of our area which is Punchestown Racecourse.’ The group says its members feel it ‘is clear is our beautiful local landscape will be irrevocably altered and transformed from a rural landscape into an industrialised solar energy landscape’. The group says Kildare has some of the best agricultural land in the country and ‘it is therefore of grave concern that the subject planning application will result in the further loss of quality agricultural lands’.
The Two Mile House Biodiversity and Heritage Group has also objected, while Kevin and Sinéad Morrissey, of Ballymore Eustace Road, Naas, told the council permission for the Dunnstown solar farm would bring the totality of the three projects to 1,203 acres and ‘would in effect almost completely wipe out the full townland of Swordlestown’. A decision is due at the end of the month.
‘Detract from the jewel in the crown’