A group of Hampshire residents is working to quash plans for the development of a solar farm near a hillside that inspired the popular children’s book, Watership Down.
The book, which was later turned into a film, is about a family of rabbits threatened by the bulldozing of their warren. Locals are now concerned that the proposed 86-acre solar farm will come at the cost of agricultural land and will lead to the development of other similar projects nearby.
Anglo Renewables (AR) is seeking approval from the local council. If the company is given permission, a solar farm would be in place for at least 40 years, after which time developers say the land, which is currently used for arable farming, would return to agricultural use.
Local newspaper East Anglian Daily Times reported that at a March consultation hosted by the renewables company, just three of the 23 residents who completed feedback forms said they were “fully supportive” of the plans, ten residents were “broadly supportive,” five objected, and a further five were undecided.
Villagers from surrounding areas have formed a campaign group named Village Solar Farm to fight against AR’s plans. Member Camilla Trusted, quoted in The Daily Telegraph, said:
Ultimately it’s about the fact that we need our fields for food. We don’t need some out-of-town developer [to] come in and make money out of exploiting our beautiful countryside.
The group has also questioned AR’s claim that sheep will be able to graze beneath the solar panels.
Ms. Trusted, whose group has obtained almost 500 signatures for a petition to stop the solar farm from being built, also expressed strong doubts over plans to return the land to agricultural use after four decades, insisting that:
If it was genuinely temporary and genuinely a case that it would be put back to farmland, then I think everyone would be delighted. But we know that it will never go back to farmland because the cost of taking that infrastructure out is going to be colossal and in 40 years’ time, who is going to be around to protect that land?
Councillors are set to decide on the fate of the land later this month. Increasingly, similar battles over questionable renewable energy projects are being fought by local residents elsewhere in Europe.
