Details of planning application

They are playing the system and we are having none of it! We commissioned our own Landscape and Visual Assessment (LVIA) study which came to very different conclusions from the applicant’s expert. Our study shows quite clearly that this landmark is much valued from a historical and cultural perspective. It is an important amenity for the people of Devizes, Potterne and surrounding villages and can be distinctly identified from over six miles away. In addition, the views from One Tree Hill are stunning 360 degree panoramas stretching many, many miles across the Wiltshire countryside. This is a ludicrous place for a solar farm, regardless of the rules you apply.

(Photo by Simon Folkard) 

There are three quite spectacular PRoWs that are impacted by this site. Access is planned to run 1.24 km over one of them – an ancient drove way which is now a byway. This is lined by ancient woodland, beech trees in particular, and there are no places to pass. HGVs will be sharing this ancient route with horse riders, walkers, riders and agricultural machinery. There are real safety issues here.

The SSEN website confirm that both local substations at Devizes and Easterton are constrained. 

This project is purely a commercial venture, yet it claims to be in the national interest.  It rides on an assumption that all solar is good solar.  

However, this is a poorly designed solution, in the wrong place which will add to the difficulties in an already constrained network and limit Wiltshire Council’s flexibility to pursue more appropriate and modern renewables projects.  

The claim of 10,000 homes "powered" by OTH Solar is both disingenuous and incorrect. The above plot shows that even compared to claims by other solar farms the estimate is double the normal trend, based on OTH capacity.

The extreme intermittency of solar, both diurnal and seasonal, makes the notion that a given number of households can be powered by solar based on annual averages totally absurd. Given the seasonal mismatch between supply and demand, far fewer than 1,000 homes could actually be serviced during winter by this installation, and only in the middle of the day!

The solar farm will cover most of the hill, running all the way from Potterne Woods to Drew’s Pond Nature Reserve. The effect of this upon wildlife will be multiple: 

• It creates a large and intrusive man-made barrier to wildlife 
• It severs the wildlife corridor between Potterne Woods and Drew’s Pond Nature Reserve 
• It destroys the existing habitat for protected species:

- Protected species of bats present - Greater Horseshoe, Lesser Horseshoe, Bechstein, Barbastelle, Pipistrelle, Natterer, Whiskered, Brandts, Brown Long Eared, Noctule and Serotine. 

- Skylarks nest on the ground in the fields 

- Brown hares and hedgehogs also inhabit these fields 

- Little owls, barn owls and other raptor species hunt and forage over the area

- Reptile species such as slow worm, lizard and grass snake

- Badgers living in Potterne Woods, will be badly impacted by the traffic. 

The problem with planning applications is that they are fundamentally subjective.  Over time, categorisations and rules have been introduced by the authorities in an attempt to take out that subjectivity.  The applicant is exploiting these rules by downplaying the significance of One Tree Hill. Firstly, they have limited the boundary of their surveys and secondly, they have classed the tree as only of “local” significance.  

Therefore, although the local impact will be very high, the "rules" require a broader scale against which the impact is deemed to be low.