Solar farm the size of 40 football pitches approved in Buckinghamshire

Plans to build a solar farm the size of around 40 football pitches in Buckinghamshire have been approved.

Low Carbon UK Solar Investment Company Limited was given permission to build ‘Callie’s Solar Farm’ near Ford and to the north of Longwick near Princes Risborough.

The firm will install around 72,000 solar panels on fields in between Owlswick Road and the A4129 Thame Road.

The maximum 49.9-megawatt site, which will ‘generate enough power for 16,580 homes’, has been scaled back from over 90 hectares in previous plans to 62.

Planning officers said: “The proposal will therefore make a significant and early contribution to the government’s legally binding target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, requiring a five-fold increase of solar energy by 2035.

“This benefit attracts very significant positive weight. The proposal will make a positive contribution towards UK energy security.”

Other elements of the solar farm include a new security fence, a substation, inverters, transformers, CCTV cameras mounted on poles and other equipment.

The consent granted to Low Carbon is for a temporary period of 40 years from the date of first exportation of electricity from the site.

The company says that once the 40 years are up, the site will revert back to its former use as agricultural land.

In addition, the firm says that sheep will be able to graze in between the panels while the site is being used to generate renewable energy.

This claim was called into question by an objector, who claimed that ‘areas underneath the solar panels can be dry and barren or only host weeds species’.

However, the council said it was satisfied that ‘ecological enhancement can be successfully supported underneath and between the panels’, although the grazing of sheep was not taken into account in the planning balance.

Despite the solar farm’s potential for renewable energy, the plans for the site have received objections, including from parish councils.

During a planning committee meeting, Cllr Jim White of the Dinton with Ford and Upton Parish Council claimed that the solar farm would see the loss of ‘115 acres of productive Grade 3 farmland’.

He told councillors: “This is huge. Potentially, enough lost wheat production, should they grow wheat on it, to make a million loaves of bread.”

The parish councillor suggested that solar panels should instead be placed on one side of the new High Speed 2 (HS2) railway line being built through Buckinghamshire.

He asked Bucks councillors to refuse the plans for Callie’s Solar Farm, adding that it would leave future generations with a ‘solar wasteland’.