A community group has vowed to challenge the approval of a controversial solar farm in County Durham countryside, writes Local Democracy Reporter, Bill Edgar.
Campaigners in Burnhope said they will return to the High Court to dispute the Government’s recent decision to overturn plans for a major solar farm on land east of Edge Lane.
In 2024, a High Court judge ruled that Durham County Council’s decision to grant planning permission for the large solar farm in the County Durham countryside was “unlawful”.
A second application by the applicant Lightsource bp was later refused by Durham County Council due to the size and scale of the proposed solar farm and the loss of landscape.
But the Planning Inspectorate said the need to tackle climate change and achieve Net Zero targets outweighed the concerns.
The solar farm will be built across a 227-acre site, with up to 14 fields overlaid with panels, including areas near the Chapman’s Well nature reserve.
The applicant added that the solar farm would have “a significant positive impact on the surrounding area, both environmentally and economically”.
However, campaigners argued the 110,640 panels would dwarf Burnhope. A total of 603 objections and 68 letters of support were submitted since the proposal was first lodged.
Kate Palmer, of the Keep It Green campaign group, said: “This is bigger than fourteen fields in County Durham. We exercised a basic democratic right – to ask a court whether a decision was lawful – and we won. If that right is closed off, it can happen anywhere, to anyone.”
Residents also warned that, as a result of previous mining activity in the area, the village was stripped of many of its facilities and expected to “die quietly” without further investment.
Luke Akehurst, MP for North Durham, said he is “angry” that people living in Burnhope will be impacted after the large-scale development was overturned by the Planning Inspectorate despite Durham County Council’s previous refusal.
Although the Planning Inspectorate said it understood residents’ frustrations and concerns, it said it had to operate objectively.
The report concluded: “The imperative to tackle climate change, achieve net zero targets and contribute to energy security as recognised in legislation and energy policy, and the other benefits of the scheme clearly outweigh those harms.”
But residents have vowed to keep campaigning.
Andrew Millross, of the Keep It Green group, added: “We support solar energy in the right place and we always have. I have solar panels on my garage roof. What we cannot accept is a process that overrides a community that has already been proved right once in the High Court – and a Government now trying to take away the very right that let us be heard.”
Bill Edgar
Reporter for the Local Democracy Reporter Service.
South West Durham News covering news across County Durham.
