Stop Lime Down rallies troops and draws up battle plans

Lime Down Solar Park Limited wants to build a 500 megawatt solar farm to the north of the M4 near Malmesbury.

Stop Lime Down are determined to stop them.

The group recently toured village halls, giving local people the ammunition they need to see off a planning application that, as campaigner Anna-Kate Fuller described it - "would industrialise our part of the Cotswolds for the next 60 years."

The group has hired external consultants and engaged the services of a barrister to help them, and ploughed through more than 300 documents containing thousands of pages to understand, and contest, Island Green Power's application.

Lime Down Solar Park - a subsidiary of Island Green Power, which is ultimately owned by Australian venture capital group and former Thames Water owner Macquarie - says its scheme would produce enough renewable energy to power 115,000 homes.

Due to its sheer scale the solar park has been designated a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project.

Rather than being determined by Wiltshire Council, the application has gone straight to the Planning Inspectorate, which will consider evidence from both sides before making a recommendation to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who will have the final say.

On the committee of Stop Lime Down is Sir Mike Pitt, who was both chairman and CEO of the Planning Inspectorate during his working life.

He had some practical advice for local people who want to oppose the scheme: "Don't try to cover everything. Think about what matters to you and how this will effect you."

The most important thing, he said, was to register comments now. The deadline is January 9 - easily missed in the run-up to Christmas and New Year festivities, he said.

During the presentations, Professor Richard Skeffington - a local who spent 22 years in the electricity industry, understanding and mitigating the effects of electricity generation on the environment - covered off a checklist of objections: from the proposed size of the solar panels - which at 4.5 metres would be the height of a double decker bus - to the substations with one particular building standing at 43 ft tall - the equivalent between four and five storey.

He said that during construction work villages would be blighted by HGVs, and more than 600 workers could be heading to the area every day in private cars. The applicant estimates 26,000 lorry movements - a figure Stop Lime Down's own traffic consultant said was a "gross underestimation".

Huge transformers, show the planning documents, would need to be brought as 'abnormal loads' requiring a police escort. Due to the narrow roads between the M4 and the site, they will have to be taken north up the A419 to Cirencester, before heading south on the A429 past Malmesbury.

"There won't be many of them, but when they come they will be very slow and very disruptive," warned Professor Skeffington.

Once construction is complete, 18 square miles around Sherston, Corston, Rodbourne, Hullavington, and Stanton St Quintin would be home to 650,000 solar panels, he said. Each cluster of panels will be surrounded by industrial fencing and CCTV cameras.

Anyone wishing to comment on the solar park proposals can do so at https://national-infrastructure-consenting.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/projects/EN010168

The applicant's planning submissions can be examined at https://nsip-documents.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/published-documents/EN010168-000824-Lime%20Down%20Solar%20Park%20Limited%20Examination%20Library.pdf