Residents readying for battle over Lime Down

LEADERS of the campaign group Stop Lime Down have been rallying the troops and drawing up battle plans ahead of the fight of their lives.

- PETER DAVISON

Lime Down Solar Park Limited wants to build a 500 megawatt solar farm to the north of the M4 near Malmesbury.

Stop Lime Down are determined to stop them.

The group recently toured village halls, giving local people the ammunition they need to see off a planning application that, as campaigner Anna-Kate Fuller described it, "would industrialise our part of the Cotswolds for the next 60 years".

The group has hired external consultants and engaged the services of a barrister to help them, and ploughed through more than 300 documents containing thousands of pages to understand, and contest, Island Green Power's application.

Lime Down Solar Park - a subsidiary of Island Green Power, which is ultimately owned by Australian venture capital group and former Thames Water owner Macquarie - says its scheme would produce enough renewable energy to power 115,000 homes.

Due to its sheer scale the solar park has been designated a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project.