Update on post 26/10/2020
Letter from Low Carbon to Little Baddow Council:
I am writing to provide you with an update to our consultation with the community which will be live from this Thursday, 29th October for 3 weeks, closing Thursday 19th November.
Letters to the near-neighbours of the site and the remainder of the community will be received this week. Along with the letter to introduce the proposal, is an information leaflet and printed feedback form, both of which I attach for your information.
Our consultation will be run online, as mentioned in our video meeting, please find the link here. Please note, the site doesn’t go live until Thursday.
Further to our video meeting, we said we would share our consultation radius for posting our information packs to the community. As mentioned, we work on about a 2km radius and try and find a natural boundary at this radius.
You will notice that not all of your Parish is included, however this shouldn’t stop your parishioners providing feedback, as they will be able to do this online or print a feedback form off and post this back to us, using our Freepost address.
I would really appreciate your help with letting the community know about our proposed project, I can suggest two ways, if you have any other suggestions please let me know.
- I am able to provide some A4 posters which you could locate within your Parish on any public notice boards or outside a village hall for example.
- Online – would you post something on your Parish Council’s website and/or Facebook Page? Again, if need be, I can create an image for you to use.
Update on Post (13/10/2020
EIASO planning application https://publicaccess.chelmsford.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=QFF2T6BR0UE00
Little Baddow Parish Council has been notified about a solar farm development project in the area. The proposal is located west of Danbury and south of Little Baddow. The proposed name is St Clere’s Solar Farm. It will cover approximately 40 acres and will be visible from the A414 travelling in both directions.
Low Carbon is the company behind the scheme, they have already submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment Screening Opinion (EIASO) which was passed on 18th Sep by Chelmsford City Council.
The company contacted Little Baddow Parish Council about the proposal in August (however at that point the EIASO had already been submitted) requesting the opportunity to engage with us to receive feedback and recommendations. Little Baddow Council attended an online presentation by the company on the 24th Sep.
We are a little concerned about the impact the development will have visually and on the industrialisation of the area. We would welcome your feedback in the comments section below.
You can view some slides from the presentation here
A solar farm of this size in this location will have a real detrimental impact on our location. I am surprised that Danbury Parish Council do not seem to be dealing with this but apologise if I am mistaken. In my opinion, not only will the solar farm be very visible and quite ugly, with few trees hiding it from the road and, as a result, have a serious effect on anyone’s desire to live in Danbury or the surrounding area.
I feel the idea is great as long as the application is carefully planned and strictly adhered too. The area should be hidden and shielded as possible.
Danbury is such a lovely village, this farm so close to the village would completely ruin the view. Build it somewhere away from built up towns so it isn’t such eyesore
Better than Nuclear
I live opposite the proposed development site and have no objections to this, I’d like it if they were to plant substantial headrows around the proposed locations to help shield them from the road slightly. Please can this be included as part of the planning ?
I presume this will be on agricultural land whereby no crops will be able to grow on if this goes ahead. Yes we need energy but we also need to make this country self sufficient with being able to provide enough food for the people who live here so as not to keep importing it. Have politicians not learnt anything over the years. During the war years food had to be imported which is why everyone was encouraged to grow their own if possible or this country would have starved. Too much prime agricultural land is being lost to solar farms without a thought for sustaining the growing population with food.
In principal I think this is a reasonable proposal.
Our little village is already crammed and being used as a cut through, south woodham is having a huge amount of houses built to add to traffic, the beauty of the area will be lost. Wildlife.
I would like to know more about the plans and location please.
Thanks for your comments, I will update the post as we get more information.
Can we please see where this is on a map ?
Hi Patricia, If you click the link for the Low Carbon document you will see it outlined in red.
I think the village is already at bursting point with the traffic and constant redevelopment of surrounding areas which burden our roads and wildlife. Have any wildlife specialists been consulted on species that currently live there? What noise and traffic will this bring? How long will it be there? What benefits exactly will the area gain from having this? Where is this energy going to be distributed? What percentage and cost to the village? I think we need more greebnery and a place to grow crops or allotments/ community garden of fruit and veg especially with the current pandemic and brexit. The benefits of nature and greenery are widely known.
Why has Danbury been chosen for the solar farm? The proposed sites are close to residential areas and ancient woods and national trust land, the impact and destruction of wildlife and birds will be irreversible. What are the benefits to the local communities of Danbury and little Baddow of this development? I will be watching closely and will be strongly objecting to this development.
My initial question is what benefit does this proposal bring to the area at the expense of losing valuable farm land, particularly at a time when we should be maximising our agricultural capacity? There must be more suitable disused brown field site areas where such a development could be placed. There is also the detrimental visual impact that such a site would bring to the area, particularly so close to the conservation area of Danbury. There is also the negative impact the proposal would have on the wildlife on the area, for which a full environmental and wild life impact assessment must surely be carried out.
Will there be any benefit to the village?
Will there still be some farming under/between panels?
Will there be any job opportunities?
Presumably the wildlife will sort itself out.
Probably don’t allow it. Use Brown land/sites
Why build the site so close to homes? The boundary of the proposed solar site is only yards from the boundary of my property and although there are a few trees between my home and the proposed site, at certain times in the year the field (and all the solar panels) will be clearly visible from my property. And if the panels are sited so close to my home (and all the other houses in the street) will we be able to hear noises (buzzing/humming) generated by the panels. This would be especially disturbing during the quiet summer nights. And what about any electrical fields radiating from these panels? What sort of disturbance/problems/danger would be associated. And what about construction and maintenance traffic? Is access proposed through residential areas? Not to mention impact on our local wildlife.
Has anyone been around an existing solar farm? Many a PRoW path i used to take has a ruined view and a loss of greenery. Screening with hedges and sowing of wildflowers does not happen. They areas are barren,Rabbits do ok! I DO NOT understand why brownfield sites,roofs of existing industry, are used. ALL new builds should have solar roof tiles? Can anyone tell me why this doesn’t happen?