Planning inspector overrules objections to grant permission to solar farm

A planning hearing held in June was told that the proposals for a site off Squirrel Lane in Ledwyche would harm the landscape and take valuable agricultural land out of food production.

In his decision letter sent on Friday (July 9), Mr Woolcock said: "I find that the planning balance falls in favour of the proposed development, and that the appeal scheme would accord with the development plan taken as a whole."

He said that the impacts of the proposal can be made acceptable through the imposition of conditions.

He said: "The impacts of the proposal can be made acceptable with the imposition of conditions."

And added that the proposal gains support from national planning policy.

He said: "For the reasons given I conclude that the appeal should succeed."

One of the grounds for refusal cited in the council’s decision notice was that the scheme, put forward by Ledwyche Solar Ltd, a subsidiary of Edinburgh-based renewable energy firm Locogen, would “have an adverse effect on the setting of the AONB and public rights of way”.

However John Ingham from Stephenson Halliday, the appellant’s landscape consultancy, told the hearing: “This site was selected, among other reasons, because it benefits from substantial existing screening around the site. That very much limits the extent of the landscape and visual effects.”

Mr Ingham said there were other developments in the vicinity, including the National Grid substation and “large utilitarian farm buildings”.

Council planning officer Grahame French said the potential impact of the scheme on the setting of the AONB was a key consideration, with the site boundary lying less than two kilometres from the edge of the AONB at its nearest point.

He added that the site’s proximity to the medieval town of Ludlow should also be factored in.

Mr French said: “There is a significant local tourism industry which depends on the integrity of the landscape as part of the attraction of Ludlow and its role as a principal settlement supporting the AONB and its tourism.”

He added that the existing solar farm on the opposite side of Squirrel Lane and other “industrial extensions to Ludlow” were better screened from surrounding viewpoints – including some from within the AONB and footpaths along the Shropshire Way – than the appeal site.

But Mr Ingham countered that there was only one point from which the site would be clearly viewed from the AONB for around 50 to 75 metres.

Councillor Andy Boddington, who proposed refusal of the scheme at the committee meeting in September, argued that the applicant should have considered “other sites of lower quality land”.