Solar farm plans approved despite squabble over benefits to locals

COUNCILLORS have approved plans for a solar farm n despite a squabble over how locals would specifically benefit from the scheme.

At an Amber Valley Borough Council planning meeting on Tuesday councillors approved the scheme from Anesco Ltd for the 94-acre solar farm north of Alfreton.

The solar farm would produce enough electricity each year to power nearly 5,000 homes and save nearly 4,500 tonnes in annual carbon emissions.

It would sit on low-grade grazing land to the east of the sewage treatment works, west of the rail line and a commercial explosives firm and north of the Meadow Lane Industrial Estate.

Councillors on the planning board all welcomed the proposal for renewable energy generation but were split on how that would be provided, where, and what benefit locals could expect. Some wished to see solar panels built on buildings, brownfield industrial land and homes instead of fields. Meanwhile, others also felt Anesco should be made or asked to volunteer money towards community projects.

Council planners Sarah Pearce and Rae Gee told councillors there was no policy in place through which the authority could ask the developer of a solar farm to give money for local projects. The officials made clear the authority only has reason to ask for funds through housing applications - for affordable housing, health, education, roads and open space.

Cllr Dave Wells said the agricultural land was of such low value that its use as a solar farm instead of merely for grazing was ideal and may lead to improved biodiversity. He said use of land for grazing sheep was known to not be a good move for boosting biodiversity. Cllr Wells also said that putting solar panels on rooftops would not be enough on its own to reduce the borough’s carbon footprint, with a need for solar farm schemes and other renewable energy projects.

He said: “If 20 per cent of homes in Amber Valley had solar panels that would only account for three per cent of the reduction in carbon emissions we need to make by 2030. We need to do both and we need them now.”

Cllr Fay Atkinson said: “I support this in principle because as a council we have declared a climate emergency and want to be carbon neutral by 2030. We haven’t heard a word here today about how the local community benefits from this. I would like to see this deferred so that the community has some mitigation for having this in their environment.”

Cllr Eileen Hamilton said: “If this was a housing scheme there would be Section 106 (money given from the developer to the council) for local people, but now they will not get any benefits. There are other solar farm [applications] coming through the system and this could set a precedent. They say the solar farm will power 5,000 houses, well is that 5,000 houses in Alfreton? Amber Valley? Where?”

Jezamine McHale, a project developer for Anesco, told the meeting that the solar farm would help the borough council reach its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and uphold its climate emergency pledge declared in 2019.

Twelve objection letters had been submitted by residents living close to the site. They welcomed the principle of solar farms in Amber Valley and the creation of green energy, but felt the location is too close to housing.