Cash-strapped Derbyshire council set to approved £3.75m solar farm plans

A cash-strapped Derbyshire council is set to approve its multimillion-pound plans for a solar farm next to a nature reserve. Derbyshire County Council, which faces a budget black hole of £40 million and an overspend of £20 million, is now set to approve plans for a £3.75 million 25–acre solar farm next to the Williamthorpe Nature Reserve, off Mansfield Road, between Chesterfield and Bolsover.

The plan would see 14,000 solar panels installed on two agricultural fields – historically a former colliery – to the east of the nature reserve, between Holmewood and the A617. The council is currently approving plans to close numerous care homes, children’s centres and day centres for older people and people with autism, cutting all grants to voluntary groups and charities, imposing a hiring freeze and pausing all non-essential spending, along with many more budget cutbacks.

County council planners, recommending approval at a meeting on Monday, December 2, wrote: “The principle, a renewable energy development on previously restored open cast coal land, outside the identified settlement development limits, is not explicitly supported by North East Derbyshire District Council policy, however, the development represents an effective use of poor-quality agricultural land, to temporarily accommodate the solar farm for a period of 40 years, and it would help towards meeting the carbon reduction targets and combating climate change which is in line with national and local planning policies.

“It is accepted that there would be glimpses into the site from visual receptors, but the overall visual impact is considered to be minimal. The development would also only be temporary and therefore any potential harm would be limited. In view of the only limited temporary harm to the landscape and with no overall harm in respect all other environmental impacts including protected species residential amenity or flooding, on balance, it is considered the clear benefits in terms of its economic and wider environmental benefits of providing a renewable energy source would clearly outweigh any potential conflict in relation to locating such a new development outside the identified settlement development.”

The council details in a report for next week’s meeting that seven objection letters and two general comment letters have been submitted to the authority over the scheme. Both general comment letters detail reasons for opposing the plans, writing: “We are proud to live in an amazing, beautiful area, which is uncommon in this part of Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire.

“We chose to live here because of beautiful nature around us, far from civilization but still we can afford it. I and my family are against solar farms in areas full of nature and farming, giving us local food, instead of chemically treated, preserved food from another side of the world.

“Please, don’t fall into this silly agenda and do not let concerns destroy this breathtaking place. Has the local wildlife, and biodiversity been took into consideration, over 100 types of bird, mammals, wildflower and fungi reside, visit and grow in these fields and woodland edge. An insane amount of damage to the local ecosystem will be done and that’s not including the wildlife that lives on the surrounding plantation and the disruption this will cause.”

Objectors claim the plans will impact the surrounding landscape and its tranquility, see the loss of fertile farmland land needed for food production, say brownfield sites should be developed first, and that the scheme will damage the neighbouring nature reserve and associated wildlife and ecology. The Williamthorpe site – a former reclaimed colliery – is the only plot out of the potential 15 sites identified by council consultants in 2022 which has an historic planning approval dating back to spiked council plans in 2015.

In late 2021, Cllr Barry Lewis, leader of the county council, said rooftops on industrial sites and warehouses would be better suited for solar development, instead of “taking up space in the countryside”.

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