Councils angered by plans for more ‘polluting’ generators on solar farm

COUNCILS and residents around Melksham have been angered by plans to install 11 fossil fuel-powered generators at a local solar farm; one parish councillor says the machines could burn as much diesel as 1,100 cars.

Roundponds Energy Ltd, which owns a large solar farm in Melksham Without, was given permission to install five generators earlier this year, but now wants to add a further six.

Local councils and residents are furious at the plans and have called them ‘unacceptable’, ‘polluting’ and a ‘threat to public health’.

The solar farm is on farmland between Shurnhold in Melksham and Melksham Lane in Broughton Gifford. The controversial Norrington Common solar farm is nearby in the Broughton Gifford parish. Melksham Without and Broughton Gifford parish councils, Melksham Town Council, Michelle Donelan MP and a number of local residents have all objected to the plan.

All three councils have objected to the air pollution and possible noise that would come out of the generators. Broughton Gifford objected ‘in the strongest possible terms’, criticising the industrialisation of the countryside and saying the generators would bring no benefit to the local economy.

Chairman of Melksham Without Parish Council, Richard Wood said, “Doubling the number of generators takes this application beyond what we’re prepared to swallow.

“We’re all for alternative energy sources but it’s unclear how long the generators will run for, whether they’ll all run at once, and whether they’ll burn diesel or gas. Gas would be less objectionable but we don’t know. It’s the uncertainty that’s worrying.

“The solar farm is there for green reasons, but this doesn’t fit with that. The first application for five generators didn’t seem so bad, but this is too many.

“At first we were concerned about the noise but now it’s the pollution too. It is in the countryside in a field, but the fumes would probably be blown towards Shurnhold, Shaw and Whitley.”

The generators, to be powered by gas or diesel, would be installed in a compound at the solar farm and used to provide energy for the National Grid, though the applicant says they do  not  have  a  ‘functional  relationship’  with  the  solar panels.

Broughton Gifford resident and parish councillor, Martin Freeman, wrote to Wiltshire Council in a personal capacity and said, “The additional generators will produce a unacceptable level of pollution that risks people’s health and wellbeing. 

“The plant will use the same amount of diesel as about 1,100 cars.  It will belch out 14 times the Health and Safety Executive short term limit for carbon monoxide, 264 times the short-term limit for formaldehyde and 93 times the EU limits for oxides of nitrogen emissions.

“The need for short term operational reserve does not justify building oil-fired generators in agricultural fields.”

The applicant said an air quality assessment would be carried out at a later date when the company knew what type of generators it would use.