NIMAONB (Not In My Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty)

Countryside Column for 28 November 2014

Sleepwalking to climate change disaster?

Well, I can’t deny it was a disappointment. I’ve long been deeply concerned about the effect of burning fossil fuels on our climate. Thus I’m a firm supporter of producing cleaner, renewable energy.

            So when a planning application for four rows of solar panels came before the parish council, I was enthusiastic.

            The key issue is that they would be sited in an area of outstanding natural beauty. But, as the AONB covers virtually the whole of our parish, any application is likely to fall in that category. 

The question was who would be able to see them?  The answer was almost nobody. The site is about a quarter of an acre on farmland well away from a road or homes. In fact they would be hidden behind 17 extremely ugly mobile homes that are used for seasonal workers on the fruit farm. They would have covered less than 800 square metres of ground hidden between two existing apple orchards.

There was one public footpath through Hemsted Forest from which they might have been visible, but the applicant proposed planting a hedge along that boundary which would have obscured them.

The benefits would have been considerable. Industry figures suggest PV solar generated electricity is at least ten times cleaner than gas and twenty times cleaner than coal fired generation. This proposed array could have cut the farm’s CO2 emissions by half—18-25 tonnes a year. It would also have saved money which, since the farm employs the equivalent of 90 full-time workers, is not insignificant.

But the parish council turned the application down. By one vote. It was extremely disheartening. Just the idea of solar panels despoiling the countryside was evidently enough to sway the opponents. Despite the fact that you can get permission to put them on your roof which, in my view, looks a great deal uglier.  And despite the fact that farmers are allowed to cover acres of fields in polytunnels which, in my view, look a great deal uglier too.

I know there is no ABSOLUTE proof that CO2 emissions are causing climate change. But the evidence is extremely strong. We can see ice caps melting.  We can see weather patterns changing. Last winter was unseasonably mild and unbelievably wet. Yet we seem unbelievably reluctant to do what little we can to reverse it. Will there be any outstanding natural beauty left to preserve unless we act now?