Solar farm to the east of Rode

The planning application for a large ‘Bluebell Wood solar farm’ with battery storage and associated infrastructure, on 74 hectares of land (184 acres) to the east of Rode, has been submitted to Somerset Council by Low Carbon UK Solar Investments.

I and Dawn attended online presentations by the applicants, and they have also presented to Rode Parish Council.

The planning application (ref. 2023/2183/FUL) is accompanied by reports of the applicant’s consultants’ assessments of flood risk, agricultural land quality, noise, traffic, wildlife and protected species, heritage and archaeology, trees, glint and glare, and landscape and visual impacts, although there was no requirement for a full Environmental Impact Assessment. There is also a Design and Access Statement, Construction Traffic Management Plan, Landscape Ecology and Tree Management Framework, reports of their pre-application consultations, an assessment of alternative sites, and plenty of drawings. I am reading through.

The applicants estimate that the solar panels would generate up to 49.9 Megawatts (MW) of electricity and would include 50MW of battery storage, enough to power over 16,000 homes annually. It will be interesting to see whether any local adverse impacts outweigh the need to tackle global climate change by decarbonising our electricity supply in this way.

Links to the application and documents, and how to respond can be found here. The applicant’s project website is here, Rode Parish Council write here, and a local news article here (Frome Nub News). You can send comments to the official consultation until 21^st December. Rode Parish Council is considering its response at its next meeting on Monday 11th December, 7.30pm in the Committee Room of Rode & District Memorial Hall. If residents wish to make a comment on the application, it would be helpful to also copy these to the Parish Council (email clerk.rodeparishcouncil@gmail.com) to enable the PC to better understand local views, by 11th December. So please have a look and have your say before the deadline. Please let me know your comments also to adam.boyden@somerset.gov.uk.

Leave a Reply