'Industrial-scale' solar farm plan turned down

Bath and North East Somerset Council's planning committee has blocked plans for a major solar farm - despite the council having declared a climate emergency.

- John WimperisLocal democracy reporter

Rural Liberal Democrat councillor Thomas Hadland said:

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 planned farm said their landscape would be “blighted with an industrial-scale eyesore?”

Planning committee member John Leach (Walcot, Liberal Democrat) disagreed. He said: “I don’t see it as an eyesore and I think future generations will be even more likely not to see this as an eyesore but to see it as a possible sign of our efforts to deal with a crisis as a crisis.”