Campaigners who want to save the Gwent Levels from a series of developments are urging people to attend public hearings

Martin Shipton

Campaigners who oppose the building of a huge solar power plant on the historic Gwent Levels are urging people to register as observers at two upcoming public hearings.

The development would consist of a renewable energy hub comprising ground mounted solar panels and battery storage units (160 units) with a combined installed generating capacity of up to 125MW, underground cabling, grid connection hub, associated infrastructure, landscaping and environmental enhancements for a temporary period of 40 years.

The applicant is Wentlooge Farmers Solar Scheme Limited, funded by Next Energy Capital and the hub would cover 318 acres south of the Newport to Cardiff railway line.

Legal challenge

Previously the application was turned down by the Welsh Government because it was considered potentially harmful to the landscape, but that decision was quashed following a legal challenge.

Two hearings are due to be held by planning inspector Melissa Hall via Microsoft Teams on Wednesday July 2 at 10.30 and Thursday July 3 at 10.30. The first will cover Ecology and Biodiversity and the second Planning Conditions.

Only people who register as observers by June 20 will be able to join the meeting. They can do so by emailing [email protected] citing the “Wentloog Solar Farm DNS hearing”.

Debbie Stenner of the Gwent Wildlife Trust said: “Within the campaign to protect the Gwent Levels SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) from major, damaging developments, we are now focussing effort on the Wentloog Solar Farm hearing. We have submitted our statement highlighting the huge biodiversity impacts and we will be alongside Friends of the Gwent Levels and other interested parties at the hearing.”WE “We want as many people as possible to register as observers at the online hearing. (You will be able to turn off your camera and mic if you would prefer.) It helps the cause greatly to show your interest to the developers and inspectorate. Please register, if you can, and help us spread the word with other active campaigners who may help.

“The proposed development is in an SSSI on the Gwent Levels, designated for the aquatic environment. We have not seen satisfactory evidence that metal pollution would not damage this. The site is also designated for rare Shrill Carder Bees, with impacts that cannot be mitigated.”

Having defeated plans to build an M4 relief road that would have bisected the Gwent Levels, Gwent Wildlife Trust is now battling against other proposed developments.

‘Ancient landscape’

Adam Taylor, the Trust’s CEO, said: “The Gwent Levels are an ancient landscape, rich in culture and important for biodiversity, recreation, flood alleviation, carbon storage and food production.

“It is now facing multiple, adjacent, enormous solar proposals and business parks as well as other development projects. The Welsh planning system in its present form is unable to control such development, and the destruction which these would cause under present arrangements would mean the end of this beautiful, fragile and complex wetland. So we are calling for a halt to significant development and for a coherent, legally binding plan to be put in place for the protection of this irreplaceable wetland and the wildlife it supports.”

“We need to stress that we are not opposed to solar energy, simply that such developments need to be located on land where they will not irretrievably damage a nationally important and designated landscape, teeming with wildlife. We have already seen the damage caused by the existing solar plant on the Gwent Levels, where a hugely important lapwing breeding site was destroyed. This exquisitely beautiful bird was once a common sight in our skies but is now a conservation red-listed species due to plummeting numbers.”

Gwent Wildlife Trust owns reserves throughout the county, and includes meadows, ancient woodland in the Wye Valley, and unspoilt upland tracts of habitat.