Willow Solar Plant – why we are objecting

Does this look like a good place for an electricity generating plant to you?

If you were looking for the ideal place to site a solar farm, would you choose a site that is regularly under 1.5m of water?

Would you choose a place that is less than 600m from an internationally protected wetland to cover with solar panels?  That’s an area the size of 70 football pitches, to be covered in panels 3.5m high and surrounded by metal fencing 2.4m high?

It beggars belief, doesn’t it? But that is exactly what the residents of Ham, a tiny hamlet, near Creech St Michael, just outside Taunton are facing.

Impact on flooding

Willow Solar Plant is now at planning application stage, even though 92% of the land is in Flood Zone 3b. The Government defines Flood Zone 3b as the functional flood plain, or “land where water has to flow or be stored in times of flood”.

The two villages of Creech St Michael and Ham already rely on flood defences and many homes depend on pumps and bunds to protect them from flooding. None of those defences were built with such a huge development nearby in mind.

Impact on local people and landscape

Incredibly, this new application comes only a year after another solar plant was approved in Ham.  That one will cover 72 acres, on the eastern side of the River Tone.  If Willow Solar Plant is allowed, it will be another 121 acres of panels. Local residents will feel engulfed by solar panels, their surroundings transformed from green, lush countryside to rows and rows of metal and glass.

Is this really sustainable development? While there are so many empty roofspaces, that could host solar panels?  And while saturated land like this has so much potential for our wildlife? Happily, Government is listening and has just approved measures to bring in rooftop solar on all new homes.  Surely, that’s the way forward? Not this large-scale industrialisation of our countryside in the name of green energy.

CPRE Somerset is working with local community and we have submitted a robust objection to Willow Solar Plant.  If you agree with us, please take a look at the planning application and send in your own comments in to Somerset Council.

Read our full objection letter to Willow Solar Plant

We will continue to challenge other solar farms that threaten our much-loved landscapes, our rural communities, farmers’ livelihoods and our capacity to grow food.

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