Shropshire solar farm plan the size of 128 football pitches
One of the biggest solar farms in the country – the size of 128 football pitches – could be built in the Shropshire countryside.
The solar farm on 257 acres (104 hectares) of former RAF land at High Ercall would be about nine times the size of Telford's Wheat Leasows solar farm – and more than three times the size of High Ercall itself.
Preliminary plans were presented at a meeting of Ercall Magna Parish Council in the village between Shrewsbury and Telford last night, where a small group of residents expressed dismay at the size of the site.
The land, next to the hamlet of Osbaston, is planned to contain 190,000 panels producing up to 50MW of energy – 10 times the amount that would categorise it as a "large scale" solar farm under government criteria, and enough to power 12,000 homes.
But Ben Wood, speaking for planning agents Savills, said developers were simply asking for public feedback at this stage to see what the feeling was – and any concerns would be fed back into the planning process.
He said: "We are not at the point of submitting a planning application yet. The application could be made mid to late August, but that is an aspiration, not set in stone."
He said the former RAF site was now used for agriculture, but key to the scheme was the plan to farm free range chickens beneath the panels.
He said: "This would co-exist with the existing poultry operation at the site – the intention is to use this income stream to support the expansion of that.
"That would be subject to a separate planning application."
He said developers would also look at biodiversity schemes with grasses and wild flowers beneath the panels and the area would be surrounded by a simple deer fence.
"We currently have a number of studies undertaken at the site at the moment to understand what the value of the site is," he said.
Humphrey Jamieson, speaking for developer Hanwha Q CELLS GmbH, said: "When you've got an installation of this kind of investment – I think it's in the region of £50 million – it is in our interests to keep everybody happy. You don't want people saying 'they didn't do a very good job of that'.
"It won't be the biggest in the country, I think there are 55MW schemes, but it will be one of the biggest, I'm not denying that," he said.
Adam Marvel, of Leapfrog consulting, added that they were working with Marches Energy Agency to ensure the benefits to the community would be well beyond what would be expected from developers normally, with programmes to tackle energy efficiency in the home and fuel poverty in the region funded by the solar farm.
