New moves to get Ludlow solar farm built
Fresh plans have surfaced for a solar farm in the south Shropshire countryside – just months after the original proposal was thrown out.
New plans by developers EBS Energy LLP are for a solar farm at Whitton, near Ludlow, half the size of the first proposal.
It comes at the same time as a bid to place 440 solar panels on poultry shed roofs at Fishmore Farm, on the outskirts of Ludlow.
The Whitton solar farm plans were among the first to prompt residents across the region into forming the Save South Shropshire Hills campaign group last year – and the first in the area to be thrown out by Shropshire Council in October. But now another application has been submitted for the same site to go on two of the four fields proposed under the previous plan.
Subsidies for large-scale solar farms over 5MW are set to end this week, but the scale of the Whitton solar farm has been reduced from 8.6MW to 4.3MW, meaning it would not be hit by the subsidy cut.
A statement by Roger Parry and Partners, acting as agents for EBS, says landscaping measures have also been included in the new plans that "substantially exceed" what was in the original proposal.
But campaigners say it doesn't change the reasons the original plans were refused, which included being on decent quality farm land. Peter van Duijvenvoorde, chairman of Save South Shropshire Hills, said: "We are disappointed it has come back," adding the campaign was "gearing up again".
He said "Our group is not against solar energy, we just believe this is not the right site for it."
He said that the Fishmore Farm application by Corbett Farms was "fantastic" and a good example of using existing commercial buildings and brownfield sites for solar panels.
"A substantial part of that energy generated will be used by the business – it's generating energy at the point of use, which is exactly the kind of thing we need," he said.
