Somerset villagers 'horrified' by proposed giant solar farm

Residents in a village close to a proposed new solar farm say they are "horrified" by the plans.

Solar farm company Low Carbon wants to build the huge development on land around Mark, in Somerset, to help the UK meet its target of being net zero by 2050. It says the project would provide electricity for more than 140,000 homes.

But locals in Mark, a village with a population of about 700 people, say the solar farm is "too large" and the road infrastructure is "not up to scratch".

Ed Perrin, development director at Low Carbon, said the project is at an "early stage" and wants "local knowledge to help shape their plans" ahead of a public consultation next spring.

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The project, called Somerset Energy Park , would see the solar farm and an energy storage park built on land east of the M5, have a generating capacity of more than 100 megawatts and would connect to the National Grid.

Jan Horn, who lives in Mark, said: "I'm horrified because they're totally going to encase the village and ruin all the countryside around."

Jane Mason, who has lived in the village for 42 years, said: "I've got very mixed feelings about it.

"I realise we do need to have sustainable electricity. We all need it, people will soon moan when we haven't got it, but equally I worry."

Another local resident, Chris Barrow, said: "The road structure is not up to scratch. The infrastructure is just not there.

"So the roads that would lead to the solar farm are all unclassified roads, single carriageway, country lanes, a lot of right angle bends.

"I just don't know how they're going to actually do the construction and the maintenance."

Rhiannon de Wreede, an expert in renewable energy, said: "We're at the beginning of quite a large energy transition.

"And we're looking to electrify as much as possible to stop burning fossil fuels and really, solar and wind are two of the cheapest ways of generating electricity at the moment."

She said she "understands people's fears" and solar farm projects such as the proposed Somerset Energy Park is "a transition".

"I understand the Mendip Hills are beautiful, and you'll be able to see the solar farm if you're walking in the hills," she said.

"But I also think in the situation that we're at now with the energy. It just feels precarious, our energy supply.

"So anything we can do for the now, we have to seriously consider."

Perrin said solar farm projects across the UK are "absolutely vital" to hit the national net zero target by 2050, meet rising demand, and ensure country is not reliant on energy overseas.

"We completely understand the local area is really important, the Somerset Levels are incredibly important to the people who live there," he said.

"We're undertaking lots of environmental surveys and studies to better understand how the landscape is used, and more importantly how our proposals impact on the landscape to ensure we can incorporate mitigation and alleviate concerns.

"We completely understand local people, with a project of this scale, will have concerns.

"We want to hear those concerns and assure people we're doing a lot of work to try and better understand how we can reduce the impact of our project."

Because of the scale of the development, any final decision will be made by the secretary of state.

Elsewhere in the West, the next stage for what could be one of the UK's biggest solar farms began last month in Wiltshire.

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