Local resident Phil Brooks’s video speaks for itself on why we should all oppose Chapel Hill Solar Farm / Monksfield Solar Farm. Click the image below to play it…
Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerk’s (RWE) Biodiversity gain is predicated on the meadows planted under solar panels being of a better quality than those already present. Well I don’t know about you, but the ones in the video seemed quite healthy to me, so not sure how growing those flowers under solar panels will lead to a bio-diversity gain. Won’t the nesting birds crash into the solar panels when they take off?
The crops growing on the farmland seemed to be doing rather well too, even though it claims that the farmland is only of moderate quality (nothing to do with quality of farm land being a planning requirement of course).
As the website administrator, I think it is worth fighting to preserve this iconic British Landscape. Landscape that is the home of Edward Elgar. The same Edward Elgar who played the piano for patients and staff under the tree that is in my garden when he was head of the Powick Hospital orchestra. He would I imagine be turning in his grave if he saw the setting of the hospital being ruined by gleaming solar panels.
It is also the same landscape that previous generations fought to preserve and prevent coming under German rule like the rest of Europe. Those war films wouldn’t look the same with Spitfires flying over solar panels.
Our proud heritage is under threat from the cynical corporate greed of a multi-billion euro company that is attempting to prove is green credentials whilst cooly suing other European governments for billions of euros of damages as their climate change policies are affecting its fossil fuel mining businesses.
So cynical that they (a) changed the name of the development from Chapel Hill Solar Farm to Monksfield Solar Farm and (b) tried to hide where it is on their planning application form. They are so disengaged from our British heritage and the local environment that they coudn’t even spell Worcester correctly on the planning application form, unless the Monksfield Solar Farm really is in “Worchester”.
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My daily walk with the dogs. How will it change? Already fields are being ploughed to visually remove footpaths that are part of the Worcestershire way. Surely there must be another solution to energy issues without ripping the heart ❤️ out of our green and pleasant land?
Your reasons fall flat. Ground nesting birds colliding with solar panels? However do they cope with trees and bushes? The hospital is no more, and they’re not taking your tree, so what are you talking about? You’re right about the war films not being the same with spitfires flying over solar panels, but then again, it would look odd with any modern building we have. That’s like saying that a western would look stupid with people driving cars – it’s irrelevant. And why is it cynical of them to have changed the name?
Biodiversity will not be affected, existing solar farms show this. And the land is mostly fallow or meadow, hardly the food growing capital of the country.
We have to accept that we need cleaner forms of energy for an ever growing market, demand is consistently increasing and you are (we all are) part of the problem – I’d wager you have more electronic devices in your house than ever before and no plans to decrease that number or use.
It’s sad, but it’s inevitable.
People building the solar farm or the owners of the company does not live in Powick, they just want to make profit at the expense of the locals.