PLANS for a major solar farm near Keynsham have been refused permission by Bath and North East Somerset Council.
The proposed 28.2-hectare solar farm would have generated enough electricity to power 5,763 homes and increased the renewable energy being generated in the area by two fifths.
But people living in the 22-home village of Burnett next door to the proposed site – located south of Gypsy Lane, between the village and Burnett Business Park – said their landscape would be “blighted with an industrial-scale eyesore.”
The agent for the applicant, Conrad Energy (Developments) II Limited, told the B&NES Council’s planning committee on September 24 that the scheme was a “direct response” to the council’s climate emergency declaration, made in 2019.
But Councillor Duncan Hounsell (Saltford, Liberal Democrat) said: “Solar is not a trump card.”
Bath and North East Somerset Council has a target of generating 110mw of renewable energy by 2029.
As of 2023, an estimated 47mw of renewables had been installed since 2010, although another 86mw has planning permission to be built. This solar farm would have generated 22.6mw.
Mr Hounsell told councillors on the planning committee that the impact on the green belt outweighed the environmental impacts, stating: “The target for renewable energy is an aspirational target and it’s not the case that you should permit any such planning application until that target is met.”
He added: “On your site visit you saw the panoramic view from Gypsy Lane. Even in driving rain the vista was magnificent.”
Members of the planning committee voted to refuse planning permission on the grounds of inappropriate development in the green belt, significant harm to the landscape, and adverse visual impacts.
Burnett resident Rosemary Turner had told the committee she had concerns about flooding and said: “Residents chose to live here for its beauty. Nobody wants to see this rural idyll destroyed.”
Philippa Paget of Compton Dando Parish Council added: “The increasing number of solar farms and proposed solar farms locally have a cumulative effect of industrialisation on the local natural beauty and precious green belt.”
The agent for the applicant had told the planning committee the land was grade four, considered poor-quality agricultural land.
In June, the council had granted planning permission for a solar farm on grade 3a agricultural land near Paulton despite warnings it would mean losing quality farmland.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporting Service
Burnett solar farm plan is refused permission
