Fenwick
Solar Farm.

One of the design aims is to sensitively integrate the solar farm into the local landscape. New structural vegetation will be planted to reinforce and complement the existing network of hedgerows and trees across the Site. This will help to screen solar PV panels, BESS and electrical equipment from view, as well as enhance wildlife connections across the Site. PV panels and other elements of the solar farm, including the BESS, will be set back from properties and Public Rights of Way, and screened using vegetation where possible.

During the construction period and the first few years of operation, planting proposed as part of the scheme would be yet to be fully established, meaning some receptors may be visible. Where receptors are screened by proposed planting the visual effects of the Scheme would decrease over time as most views become filtered and eventually screened by vegetation.

Glint and glare will be minimised by using anti-reflective coating on the solar PV panels. Together with the screening planting, glint and glare impacts have been considered and mitigated where necessary.

The site for the solar farm has been selected and designed to minimise the impacts on Best and Most Versatile (BMV) agricultural land; and research and field surveys confirm that the majority of the land is non-BMV.

The soil beneath the solar panels does not need to be lifted to install the panels so the soil profile will not be disturbed. The physical footprint of the solar farm components which require foundations or hard-standing, such as field stations, on-site substations and access tracks, makes up a small proportion of the solar farm area, which means the soil disturbance will be minimal.

The change from arable agriculture to grassland is temporary as the land can be returned to arable farming upon decommissioning of the solar farm. The temporary shift from arable to grassland is predicted to result in positive changes to soil structure and soil carbon content. The change of agricultural land into wildlife habitat is likely to lead to significant benefits to ecology.

The land within cable corridors will be reinstated after construction and will remain available for normal agricultural use.

The main impact on traffic and transport is likely to be from staff vehicles and HGVs during construction. The movement of construction traffic can also reduce pedestrian amenity and deter the local residents from active travel.

To address this, the routes to be used and timings for deliveries and staff will be defined in a Construction Traffic Management Plan (CTMP) before construction begins, and all construction staff will adhere to this. The Public Right of Way network will remain largely unaffected during construction. We will however, require one permanent Public Rights of Way diversion (Sykehouse 29). The permanent diversion will follow the path that we understand residents typically use, as gathered from previous consultation of the public, and engagement with the council.

As the operational solar farm requires little maintenance there will be limited traffic during operation.

Measures laid out within the Construction Environmental Management Plan like careful positioning of noisy machinery away from residential properties, regular noise monitoring, notifying local residents of any noisy works and adhering to the agreed working hours will help reduce the noise effects on the local residents during construction.

Noise modelling results suggest that the operational solar farm will not significantly change the noise baseline for the local residential receptors. This is achieved by locating the electrical equipment such as the on-site substations, BESS and field stations away from receptors.

The design of the Scheme avoids all sites statutorily designated for their biodiversity value and avoids, or seeks to minimise, impacts on sites that are non-statutorily designated for their biodiversity value. Measures embedded within the Scheme design ensure that designated sites are not adversely impacted during construction, operation or decommissioning e.g. through site construction routes away from designated sites, incorporating suitable buffer zones and erection of temporary construction fencing to avoid incursion into exclusion zones. Furthermore, an Ecological Clerk of Works (ECoW) will oversee works, as necessary, to ensure embedded mitigation measures are implemented.

The Scheme has also been designed to avoid key nature conservation and ecological features present within or adjacent to the Site. A number of buffers from key ecological features will be adhered to, and these can be read in further detail in Chapter 9 of the PEIR.

Additionally, a Framework CEMP (included as PEIR Volume I Appendix 2-1: Construction Environmental Management Plan) outlines the good practice measures that will be implemented during construction of the Scheme to mitigate construction-related effects on biodiversity associated with dust deposition, air pollution, pollution incidents, water quality, light, noise and vibration.

We have assessed the likely significant effects of the Scheme on the water environment. The water environment includes surface water bodies (e.g. rivers and streams), groundwater bodies, as well as flood risk and drainage.

Embedded mitigation in the design, the implementation of good practice during construction, and the implementation of a Surface Water Drainage Strategy to minimise flood risk will be implemented to minimise adverse effect on the water environment. The Surface Water Drainage Strategy, which is set out in PEIR Volume I Chapter 9: Water Environment, has been developed to mimic natural drainage as far as practicable using Sustainable Drainage Systems, and to provide a number of other benefits to ecological habitat creation.

The design of the Scheme will take account of the flood risk in the area. The majority of the south and west areas of the Solar PV Site are located within Flood Zone 1 (low risk). The north and east areas of the Solar PV Sire are located within Flood Zone 2 (medium risk) and Flood Zone 3 (high risk). The areas of the site shown to be at high risk flooding benefit from the presence of flood defences.

The heights of solar PV panels and equipment foundations, including the BESS, will be enough to avoid them being affected by flooding. The Scheme will not increase flood risk outside of the site.

Through the use of embedded mitigation, there would be no significant effects on the water environment from the Scheme.

The location and the layout of the solar farm minimises impacts on designated cultural heritage assets and their settings, such as scheduled monuments, listed buildings and conservation areas, and on non-designated assets, such as historic buildings and landscape, and archaeological remains.

Archaeological surveys are ongoing. The results of field surveys will identify the location of buried archaeological remains and allow the solar farm to be designed around them. Where avoiding archaeology is not practicable, appropriate archaeological mitigation, such as excavation, will be undertaken to ensure remains are fully understood and recorded.