Second bid for battery storage site in Green Belt

Original plan was blocked last September

- Phil Corrigan Local Democracy Reporter

REVISED, 'quieter' proposals for a battery energy storage site in the Green Belt have been submitted - after councillors blocked the original scheme.

The plans would see 48 battery containers and supporting infrastructure installed in a field at Newfields Farm in Wetley Rocks, next to the existing Cellarhead electricity substation, to provide 'balancing services' to the local power grid.

Planning committee members at Staffordshire Moorlands District Council voted to refuse the previous application in September. Raising concerns over issues such as noise and the 'industrialisation of the landscape,' councillors said that the benefits of the Rownall Road scheme would not outweigh the harm caused to the Green Belt.