Parish council responses to a solar farm application

A parish council response to a solar farm application carries more weight than any individual objection, and it is wasted if it reads like one. The council is a consultee, its comments have to be reported to the decision maker, and a case officer writing a committee report will quote a parish response that is organised by policy and evidence. A parish council solar farm objection built on the view from the village hall will be summarised in a sentence and answered in another.

The three areas where a parish council can add something an officer does not already have are the quality of the agricultural land, the accuracy of the landscape work, and local knowledge of the lanes and the drainage.

The parish council's status as a consultee

Parish and town councils that have asked to be notified are consulted on applications in their area, and the local planning authority must take their representations into account. The response period is normally 21 days, with an extension available on request in most authorities.

That status comes with an expectation. A parish response that identifies the relevant development plan policies and explains how the proposal performs against them is treated as evidence. One that states opposition without a policy hook is recorded as a representation and weighed accordingly.

Two practical points. Resolve the response at a properly convened meeting and record it in the minutes, because a response sent by one councillor without authority can be discounted. And say clearly whether the council objects, supports or offers comment, since officers sort responses into those three boxes before reading them.

Agricultural land classification and the policy test

National policy expects poorer quality agricultural land to be used in preference to higher quality land where development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, and planning guidance on renewable energy asks the same question of ground-mounted solar specifically.

The evidence to scrutinise is the applicant's Agricultural Land Classification survey. Three questions are worth asking:

• Is there a site-specific survey at all, or does the application rely on the published 1:250,000 maps, which show Grade 3 undivided and cannot distinguish 3a from 3b?
• What was the auger boring density, and were soil pits dug? A detailed survey is normally one boring per hectare, and the report should show every position on a plan.
• How were the wetness and droughtiness limitations derived, since those two usually decide whether land falls into subgrade 3a, which counts as best and most versatile, or 3b, which does not.

A parish council that asks those three questions is asking the same questions Natural England asks, and it is doing so in language the officer can carry into the report. Natural England is itself consulted where 20 hectares or more of best and most versatile land would be lost.

Note the policy test carefully. It is not that solar farms cannot go on good land. It is that the use of agricultural land has to be justified and that poorer land should be preferred where it is available.

Landscape and visual effects at the right scale

Landscape work on solar is often weakest on cumulative effects and on the treatment of the site's edges.

Check that the landscape and visual impact assessment uses viewpoints that reflect where people actually are: the footpath network, the lane that carries school traffic, the churchyard, the properties on the edge of the village. Where a viewpoint the parish would expect is missing, say which one and why it matters, with a grid reference.

Look at the zone of theoretical visibility and then at the photomontages. A montage taken in full leaf in July from a position behind a hedge that is cut back each winter is a familiar problem, and a parish council can say with authority when a boundary is flailed and when it is not.

Cumulative assessment should include schemes that are permitted but not yet built, and schemes under consideration. Parish councils often know about a neighbouring application before the assessment does.

Panel height, fencing type, and the position of the substation, inverter cabins and CCTV columns matter more to how a solar farm is experienced than the panels themselves. Ask for those to be shown on the montages.

Glint and glare near roads and airfields

Reflected light from panels is assessed separately from landscape effects, using a geometric model of the sun's position through the year against the panel orientation and the receptor position.

Receptors that matter are dwellings, road users on stretches where the sun would be behind the array, railway signal sightlines, and aerodromes. Where a licensed or unlicensed airfield is within range, the operator and the aviation safeguarding process become relevant, and the questions that arise in a glint and glare assessment near an aerodrome apply.

A parish council contribution here is local: which road bends face the site, where the low winter sun already causes problems, whether there is a gliding club or a private strip nearby that the applicant may not have identified.

Access, construction traffic and cabling

Construction is short and intense. Expect a construction traffic management plan covering the route, the hours, wheel washing, the passing places to be used and any temporary widening.

Ask for the abnormal load movements to be identified separately, and for a condition requiring a pre-construction condition survey of the lanes with a commitment to make good. Verge damage and hedge loss on single-track roads are the effects villages remember long after the panels are quiet.

The grid connection is the part most often left vague. Cable routes can run for kilometres, cross watercourses and require separate consents, and a parish council is entitled to ask where the cable goes, who consents to it, and whether hedgerows or trees are affected along the way. The reports needed for a ground-mounted solar farm include ecology and drainage work, and that work should cover the cable route as well as the array itself.

Decommissioning and restoration

Solar consents are usually granted for a fixed period, commonly around 40 years, with a requirement to remove the development and restore the land afterwards.

The wording of that condition is where a parish council can make a lasting difference. Ask for a decommissioning and restoration method statement to be submitted before development starts rather than at the end of the period, for it to cover removal of cable, foundations and hardstanding as well as panels, and for a soil management plan that protects the structure of the ground during construction and reinstatement.

Ask also what happens if the operator changes or fails. Restoration secured by a planning obligation with a financial guarantee is stronger than a condition alone, and the council's legal team can advise whether that is available in the circumstances.

Writing a response the officer can quote

Structure the response the way the officer report is structured, and it will be lifted into it.

1. State the council's position in the first line: object, support or comment.
2. List the development plan policies engaged, by policy number, with the adopted plan named and dated.
3. Take each issue in turn, stating the point, the evidence and what is being asked for. Ask for a condition where a condition would solve the problem.
4. Identify anything factually wrong in the application documents, with the document name and page.
5. Set out the local knowledge that the applicant cannot have: flooding on a named lane, a right of way that is used more than the survey suggests, the winter state of a hedge.
6. Say whether the council wishes the application to go to committee and whether it wishes to speak.

Leave out what is not material. Loss of property value, the identity of the developer, the ownership of the land and the profitability of the scheme carry no weight. Community benefit funds are generally not material either, unless the payment relates to the development and mitigates its effects, so a response that trades the objection for a fund is on weak ground.

Where the parish wants to comment on the applicant's community engagement, the Statement of Community Involvement submitted with the application is the document to read first.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.