By Cllr Greg Peck
I feel privileged to live in this part of Norfolk. We are lucky to have a nesting pair of barn owls on our property. Every year for the past 20 years I have enjoyed watching them quartering our fields and water meadow, hunting for voles.
In June the water meadow has four different varieties of orchid blooming there, and when I walk my fields I often see buzzards and kites hunting the fields and meadow.
Beyond the small stream and wood that borders my property is an arable field belonging to a neighbouring farmer. This field is home to skylarks; it is known unofficially by my neighbours in the village as “Skylark Field”.
This is the Norfolk countryside that I was fighting to defend when I was chair of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) Norfolk, and subsequently for the East of England, for 12 years before getting involved in local politics.
I was disappointed but not surprised to see Rachel Richmond, representing St Mary’s, Reepham (Your Letters, 31 October), taking issue with my recent article in Reepham Life (Countryside at risk from proposed solar farms).
She trotted out the usual supposed benefits of solar parks that you find in the glossy brochures of the solar park companies.
As a councillor I have been involved in a number of applications for solar parks over the past 10 years. They all claimed they would have sheep grazing and bees.
I have yet to see one in Broadland that has either. In fact, the only one I am aware of, outside of Norfolk, quickly took the sheep off because they were rubbing up against the panels and damaging them.
How do barn owls quarter over a field of solar panels? I am not sure how fields of plastic and glass will enhance the numbers of skylarks. They seem to be doing very well around me without the help of solar panels.
Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and other pressure groups are worried about the plight of bats on a potential three-mile section of road and a bridge for the proposed Western Link.
However, they seem comfortable with covering thousands of acres of countryside with solar parks, pylons and wind turbines. No mention of bats there!
The sites we are seeing brought forward now are 3,000–4,000 acres in size. Future generations will need to be fed; where is that food going to be produced?
Over a 10-year period the panels degrade and need to be replaced if they are to remain efficient. The degradation also means they are shedding microplastics into the soil and thus ultimately into the water courses.
How does Rachel Richmond think solar panels are made? Plastic is a derivative of oil. Does she support stopping oil production? If so, let me know how future solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles will be produced.
The large schemes coming forward now include applications for battery storage facilities. These are lithium-ion batteries that, if they catch fire, are impossible to put out.
The fire service has objected to them as they cannot be extinguished and will just have to let them burn, with all the resulting pollution that will be generated.
Lithium and other rare earth products are mined by child labour in third world countries; they are highly polluting and almost impossible to dispose of.
In the US they bury disused wind turbine components in “mass graveyards” in the Nevada Desert.
As I mentioned in my original article, the current planning regulations (the National Planning Policy Framework) state that solar parks should be built on “poor quality” farmland. The land at Pettywell is rated “best and most versatile” agricultural land.
In response to contact from a concerned local resident, Jerome Mayhew, MP for Broadland and Fakenham asked the Secretary of State for clarification of the government’s policy and on 14 October got the following response:
“The government places great importance upon our agriculture and food production, and this is reflected in the National Planning Policy Framework. The framework is clear that local planning authorities should recognise the economic and other benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land.
“Where significant development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, including ground mounted solar, the planning authority should seek to use poorer quality land in preference to that of a higher quality.”
However, I fear that Ed Miliband and his government will change the rules in the near future. Until then I will do everything I can to stop these solar farms being built on good quality farmland.
Cllr Greg Peck, Norfolk County Council, Reepham Division
Tel: 07972 230282
Email: greg.peck.cllr@norfolk.gov.uk