In mid September 2020 Enso Energy submitted an EIA Scoping Opinion to the Babergh & Mid-Suffolk District Council (BMSDC) planning department.
Details of this can be found on the BMSDC website under application DC/20/04125.
The solar power plant would be 242 acres in size, supplying 49.9MW of electricity directly into the National Grid, and include a battery energy storage system (BESS).
In the process it would remove 242 acres of high quality arable land from production for a minimum of 40 years, intrude on a designated and protected Special Landscape Area (SLA) and Roadside Nature Reserve (RNR), and remove open arable habitat from many animals.
Enso Energy hosted a public consultation webinar, of which a replay can be viewed on their website. (If you do not have the internet capacity to view videos online please send an email to team@caresuffolk.org as we have a few DVD copies available for short term loan).
After thoroughly analysing the proposal documents, a huge raft of concerns were raised amongst residents, and submitted to the BMSDC planning officer, Bron Curtis.
A significant number of public comments were noted on the EIA Scoping Opinion (all in objection except one), as well as many consultant comments requiring more information from Enso’s inadequate desk-studies.
The EIA Scoping Opinion phase of this planning application is now over and we are awaiting the report from the BMSDC Planning Officer to be released. There was a lot for the department to go through!