Walkthrough: a solar array on farmland

A solar farm planning application on agricultural land is decided on two issues more than any other: the quality of the land being used and the effect on the landscape. Everything else, and there is plenty of it, is manageable by condition. The following walkthrough is illustrative: a 22 hectare ground-mounted array on a gently sloping arable field in lowland England, two kilometres from a substation with capacity, with a public footpath crossing one corner and a small airfield seven kilometres to the south-west.

The grid connection chose the site. That is true of almost every solar application, and it shapes how the alternatives argument has to be run.

The site, the grid connection and why it was chosen

The developer held a connection offer at a named substation with a defined capacity and a connection date. Cable route length drives cost steeply, so the search area was effectively a radius around that substation rather than the whole district. That is a legitimate constraint and it belongs in the planning statement, stated plainly.

Scale matters for the route as well as the argument. Above the nationally significant infrastructure threshold in England, a solar scheme is consented by the Secretary of State under the Planning Act 2008 rather than by the local planning authority, and that threshold has been changed, so check the current figure before assuming which regime applies. This scheme sat below it and went in as a full application to the district council.

Site selection evidence took the form of a short sequential exercise: the substation radius, the fields within it, and why each was rejected or carried forward on grounds of land grade, slope and aspect, landscape sensitivity, heritage setting, flood zone and access. Four alternatives, each with a reason. That document did more work at committee than the design and access statement.

Land classification and the best and most versatile question

The land quality question comes first because it can stop the scheme. Agricultural Land Classification grades 1, 2 and 3a are best and most versatile land, and national policy expects poorer quality land to be used in preference where development of agricultural land on any scale is demonstrated to be necessary.

Published regional ALC mapping is too coarse to answer the question at field scale, so a site-specific survey was commissioned: auger borings on a grid across the site, soil profiles described, with texture, stoniness, depth and wetness class recorded, and the field graded in accordance with the published classification guidelines. The result mattered a great deal. A field mapped as grade 3 at regional scale split into grade 3a on the drier upper slope and 3b across the lower two-thirds.

The scheme was then redrawn to exclude most of the 3a area, leaving it in arable production. That single change removed the strongest objection, and it cost around 8 per cent of the generating capacity. An Agricultural Land Classification survey should be commissioned before the layout is fixed rather than after, and a soil scientist is the appropriate author.

Landscape and visual assessment from the rights of way

Visual effect is the issue that generates objections. The Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment followed GLVIA3 principles: baseline landscape character, identification of visual receptors, assessment of effects at year one and at year 15 once planting has established.

Receptors on this site were the public footpath crossing the north-east corner, two lanes on the western and southern boundaries, a bridleway on rising ground to the north offering a longer view across the field, and three dwellings within 400 metres.

The bridleway view could not be mitigated by planting, because the receptor looks down onto the site. The assessment said so, recorded a moderate adverse residual effect from that one viewpoint, and did not pretend otherwise. Conceding one unmitigable effect makes the rest of the assessment credible.

Glint and glare, and the aviation consultation

Glint and glare is assessed geometrically. Panel orientation and tilt, the sun path across the year, and the position of receptors determine whether reflected light reaches a road, a dwelling or an aircraft approach.

With an airfield seven kilometres away, the assessment had to model the approach paths and the air traffic control position. The Civil Aviation Authority publishes safeguarding guidance and the airfield operator is the body to consult, usually at pre-application stage. Aviation safeguarding is not one of PlanScope's report types, and this is specialist work commissioned separately.

Road receptors mattered more here than the airfield. One stretch of the southern lane fell within a predicted glare period on late afternoons in autumn, resolved by a combination of hedgerow height and a small setback at that corner.

Biodiversity, sheep grazing and the management plan

Solar sites can deliver real biodiversity improvement, and the planning case is stronger when that is evidenced rather than asserted. The submission included a habitat baseline using the statutory metric, a landscape and ecological management plan covering seeding mixes, cutting regimes, hedgerow management and the grazing arrangement, and a commitment to a grassland sward maintained by sheep grazing rather than mown amenity grass.

A Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment using the statutory metric has to be completed by a competent person under the Environment Act 2021 regime, and the biodiversity gain plan is approved by the local planning authority. The arable-to-grassland change gave a comfortable uplift, which is common on solar schemes and is one of the real planning benefits available.

Retaining agricultural use through grazing also helps with the land quality argument, because the soil is not sealed and the field can return to arable production at the end of the permission.

Construction traffic and the decommissioning condition

Construction was programmed over roughly 20 weeks, with the heaviest movements in the first six during piling and panel delivery. A Construction Traffic Management Plan set the approved route avoiding two villages, agreed passing places and a temporary site access with visibility splays, wheel washing, and a delivery booking system keeping abnormal loads away from school times.

Permission was granted for a temporary period, with a condition requiring the site to be decommissioned and restored at the end of it. Temporary periods of 40 years are common for solar, with shorter periods on earlier consents, and the period applied here should be read from the decision notice rather than assumed.

Read the decommissioning condition line by line. It required a decommissioning and restoration method statement to be submitted and approved before the fifteenth year, covering removal of panels, frames, cabling, fencing and the substation, treatment of pile foundations, and soil restoration to a specified standard with aftercare. Some authorities also seek a financial bond or a section 106 undertaking to secure restoration, and whether that is reasonable is contested. Where a car park or building roof is the host instead of a field, the land quality question disappears and the case looks quite different, as with a solar canopy over a car park.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required: land classification, landscape assessment, glint and glare modelling and the statutory biodiversity metric all need suitably qualified authors, and the figures in this walkthrough are illustrative rather than a guide to any particular site.