Election candidate Ian Liddell-Grainger has expressed his ‘deep disappointment’ over the green light being given for another solar farm in West Somerset. And he says, the installation will stand as a memorial to the uncontrolled greed of a farming dynasty once regarded as a pillar of the local agricultural community. A planning inspector has ruled in favour of the farm being built on high-grade farmland owned by the Wyndham Estate. It will stand close to another already constructed on a south-facing slope overlooking the A39, creating, according to objectors, a massive, unsightly intrusion into the landscape which will be incapable of being screened in any way. Mr Liddell-Grainger, who is contesting the new Tiverton and Minehead constituency for the Conservatives, said campaigners against the project has done all they possibly could to halt it.
“Unfortunately as the planning regulations currently stand there were no strong grounds for refusing it,” he said. “Ironically only last week the Government, recognising the harm that was being done by the spread of solar farms, issued new guidance stressing that they should only be allowed on brownfield sites or poor-quality agricultural land - and that planners should have regard to the cumulative impact of several solar installations when grouped together, “I am deeply disappointed that those guidelines arrived too late to be a factor in this issue. Sadly the people of West Somerset will now have to drive past a memorial to the corporate greed currently being displayed by the Wyndham Estate which in this case has led to the comprehensive desecration of a fine sweep of attractive landscape.”
