Issue - meetings

Forward Plan Ref: 2014/071

Contact: Linda Currie, Planning Strategy Officer Tel: (01865) 810432

Report by Deputy Director for Environment & Economy – Strategy Infrastructure & Planning (CMDE11).

The report seeks endorsement from the Cabinet Member for the Environment of a draft Position Statement on major development proposals for ground-mounted solar PV arrays. A decision on an earlier draft of the Position Statement was deferred at the July meeting. The current draft takes into consideration feedback from a focussed consultation with relevant stakeholders and further development of government policy.

The County Council is a consultee in the local plan preparation and development management process. The advice in the statement is intended to ensure that those matters in which the County Council has an interest are fully considered by applicants ahead of submission of a planning application for solar farm development  and by local planning authorities looking to prepare relevant  local plan policy and determine planniing applications.

The draft document explains that In view of the benefits of solar PV development the County Council supports the development of ground-mounted solar PV development in principle, provided that there are no significant environmental of visual impacts.

It sets out the technical issues which developers of ground-mounted solarPV development should consider in formulating their proposals, including the need for any mitigating measures, to ensure that schemes:

 • are appropriately sited;

•  respect local landscape, heritage and visual amenity;

•  mitigate transport impacts, including to rights of way; and

•  take account of opportunities to enhance bio-diversity.

The Cabinet Member for Environment is RECOMMENDED to approve the conversion of the two Pelican crossings to toucan crossings at Barton Road and outside St. Andrews School and the conversion of the length of footway to shared use facility as shown in Annex 1 to the report CMDE11 (drawing number: S-000942/CON/000/001/REV1) and to progress to its delivery in 2014/15.

Agreed subject to the following amendment in bold italics to the paragraph titled Agricultural Land on page 5 of the Statement

“Agricultural Land

“Where large scale solar PV farms are proposed on greenfield land, the developer should show that the use of agricultural land is necessary. Poor quality land…..”

The report (CMDE11) sought endorsement from the Cabinet Member for Environment of a draft position statement on major development proposals for ground-mounted solar PV arrays.  A decision on an earlier draft of the Position Statement had been deferred in July and the current draft had subsequently taken into consideration feedback from a focussed consultation with relevant stakeholders and further development of government policy.

Michael Tyce (CPRE) welcomed the general terms of the policy but stressed that those elements seeking to protect the countryside needed to be enhanced. He recognised the importance of solar panels in reducing carbon emissions but it represented a very greedy land use and was always harmful to the landscape. It affected food production and however much mitigated tackling our declining food security was a more important land use than solar panels. Despite the claims of the industry, use of land for solar arrays prevented any meaningful agricultural use. CPRE opposed solar development in open countryside and happily the Government agreed with that view stating that far more than enough solar energy could be supplied from roofs and existing brownfield sites so that open land need not and should not be used. However, as with any development, developers would target easier green fields if they could.  For those reasons CPRE were asking for two key additions to the Statement.  Firstly that Government Guidance required that use of agricultural land of any quality must be shown to be necessary, and that solar energy should be focussed on roofs and brownfield sites. Developers would therefore need to demonstrate that roof space and brownfield sites were inadequate to meet quantitative targets, before green fields could be considered at all. Secondly although the NPPF required that (if development was necessary) poorer quality land should be used, in the case of solar energy this had been overtaken by a recent DEFRA statement in which the Environment Minister said that ANY grade of land was better used for agriculture than solar energy.  A County wide solar policy should also include sequential testing and the Environment Minister’s advice and should not support ground mounted solar except on brownfield sites.

He had also suggested some further more minor improvements in an email to officers, particularly with regard to maintaining the amenity of footpath users.

Mrs Currie confirmed that an amendment was being suggested to the paragraph entitled Agricultural Land which she hoped would go some way to meet CPRE’s concerns and address the issue of sequential testing. However, with regard to NPPF guidance there was little that the County Council could do to control what developers sought to invest their money in.

The Cabinet Member fully understood the desire to use brownfield sites and buildings but Oxfordshire as a predominantly rural county needed the statement to specifically cover agricultural land. Therefore, having regard to the arguments and options set out in the documentation before him, the representations made to him and the further considerations set out above the Cabinet Member for Environment confirmed his decision  ...  view the full minutes text for item 71

Deferred (to 9 October 2014)

The Cabinet Member for Environment was being asked to endorse a proposed Position Statement on Major Development Proposals for Ground Mounted Solar PV Arrays for the County Council.

Officers referred to a late submission from the CPRE who, whilst welcoming the statement in principle had raised some concerns regarding a lack of reference to the Oxford Green Belt.   National Planning Policy Guidance stated that many renewable energy projects would be inappropriate in the Green Belt and needed very special circumstances to justify them. Statements by government ministers in recent months had given even greater weight to this argument against allowing solar farms in the Green Belt.  CPRE felt it would be highly inappropriate for the County, which helped set up the Green Belt in the 1950s, and supported its aims in successive Structure Plans, to now choose to ignore it in this policy statement on solar farms.   These concerns were shared by the Oxford Green Belt Network.  They requested that a decision on the statement be deferred to allow further consideration of this issue and also the position with regard to AONBs, where they felt insufficient weight had been given to the value of agricultural land and the potentially inadequate treatment of public rights of way and ensure that the final position statement was a more robust document to support renewable energy in appropriate locations.

Officers confirmed that position statements set out pre-application advice only and officers would continue to respond on specific applications.  However, the process of putting together such statements was a new one and the representations from CPRE had highlighted some issues regarding appropriate levels of consultation which should be undertaken on these documents and officers were happy to reconsider these issues if the cabinet Member chose to defer.

Having regard to the arguments and options set out in the documentation before him, the representations made to him and the further considerations set out above the Cabinet Member for Environment confirmed his decision as follows:

to defer consideration of the Position Statement: Major Development Proposals for Ground-mounted Solar PV Arrays to a future meeting to allow further consultation.