In your recent letter of the week Robert Foxwell of Lanhill brought up the problems caused by the construction of the solar farm at Castle Combe Circuit.

While I am a supporter of solar farms and renewable energy, I have every sympathy with his concerns. When major schemes of this sort, including the current raising of local road bridges for the electrification of the Paddington railway line, are planned and executed, two key principles should apply.

Firstly, the disruption to normal community and business life should be minimised and secondly, that local communities should benefit financially from these schemes. The latter is a requirement when new housing or supermarket developments take place.

However, there is no such requirement on solar farms, or major infrastructure renewal, such as the railway electrification programme.

As a resident of Yatton Keynell, I am well aware of the disruption near the village and through to Chippenham. Yet it appears that this could have been avoided.

An alternative route could possibly have been provided for the cabling causing the disruption via the Ministry of Defence oil pipeline, which, according to Fisher German, is “looking to be abandoned”. This pipeline runs through the village all the way to Lyneham.

Residents have the right to know whether this option was fully explored or whether, as is the case with the road bridges, Wiltshire Council failed to engage fully to protect the interests of local residents and businesses.

It seems wrong that such major infrastructure developments like the raising of the road bridges and the building of the solar farms fail to give significant benefits to the communities that are being impacted by them.

The Castle Combe solar farm is making a modest community contribution, but the new solar scheme at Lyneham is offering no such help despite the need for a new cable to link up with the National Grid at a point to the north of the M4.

I have called for the adoption of a levy of £1,000 per annum per megawatt on the owners of such solar schemes to be paid to parish councils that are directly affected.

This is the figure that was offered by the proposed Seend solar scheme near Westbury that is currently being held back by Wiltshire Council despite the positive views of many local residents.

I have written on the subject of a compulsory community benefit levy to Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, at his request.

It is vital that the public benefits from such renewable energy schemes.

We all consume energy and we need to have clean sustainable sources of it. But it is vital that communities that are the source of this energy benefit from such schemes.

Dr Brian Mathew, Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for North Wiltshire.