What is proposed?
Taking up to 2,700 acres of both fertile farm land and some lower grade land around Lydd and Greatstone, this could become the largest solar and battery storage (BESS) project proposed for Romney Marsh to date. It is being planned by a company called Blue Planet Solar Limited, a joint venture between EDF Renewables and PS Renewables.
South Brooks Solar Farm joins South Kent Energy Park and Shepway Energy Park in the race to industrialise much of the unique and historic Romney Marsh to rapidly meet the government's Net Zero targets.
While large tracts of the land offered by landowners for the solar scheme is top grade farm land, some of the land optioned for the South Brooks Solar scheme is not as productive, but borders designated areas around Dungeness including SSSI and Ramsar sites.
Site A of the South Brooks solar/battery scheme also directly adjoins prime farm land that Low Carbon has optioned for its 1500 acre South Kent Energy Park which is almost all top grade, high yield, best and most versatile land. The companies are also looking to build cabling and access tracks on other lareas of farm land outisde the red line boundary.
The adjoined South Kent and South Brooks energy complexes would create 6.5 square miles of sprawling solar panels and battery storage across the south of Romney Marsh engulfing the hamlets, villages and towns of Old Romney, Midley and Lydd and pushing up against Hope All Saints, New Romney and Greatstone.
Hands Off Our Marsh believes that ecologically protected land should not be threatened and Best and Most Versatile farm land should be protected from development just as it has been since the 1960s. The government's current mad dash Net Zero policies put food security and rural stability, as enshrined in the post-war 1947 Agriculture Act, at risk.
This third Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project will push the amount of farm land optioned for solar/battery storage schemes on Romney Marsh to around 5300 acres - 8.3 square miles - nearly 10% of the whole area. This is equivalent to the size of about 3 Gatwick Airports.
See South Brooks Solar Farm website for details about the proposals. The first consultation has now closed.
Sign the petition opposing South Brooks Solar Farm.
