Mallard Pass Solar Farm

Background: 

Mallard Pass is a 880 hectare site predominantly on farmland adjacent to Essendine, Lincolnshire. The project falls across two local authority boundaries (Rutland and South Kesteven) who have both declared climate emergencies.  The developer, Windel Energy, are proposing a 350MW solar photovoltaic farm with the potential for inclusion of battery storage to deliver clean, renewable energy to around 92,000 homes.

Challenge: 

The project is currently at scoping stage and DWD has worked with the project team to deliver a Stage One non-statutory consultation and is working closely with the local authorities, communities and other consultees. Whilst the project is currently being refined to take account of the first stages of consultation, the key challenges for the team is articulating the reasons for a project of this scale in this location and addressing concerns about developing solar on what is seen by the community as prime agricultural land. Parts of the solar farm boundary are also located close to people’s homes and the team has been focusing on refining the design to ensure that the panels are an acceptable distance from where people live and deliver wider biodiversity and landscape benefits. 

Most people understand the benefits of solar in terms of climate change, however the increasing number of large scale solar projects in the UK is drawing public attention and each project will need to do more to explain why it should succeed and to articulate the wider benefits, not just in terms of climate change. A small, but vocal, minority of people living very close to these projects is also starting to draw political attention and it will be necessary for the solar industry to start addressing industry-wide issues, such as loss of agricultural land. For instance, we know that the Lincolnshire projects are already being asked to look at the cumulative effect of loss of agricultural land.

DWD services and key personnel:

Sarah Price is the planning lead for Mallard Pass and is leading on planning strategy, project definition and as the public face of the project. This has included presenting on community webinars and being interviewed by the media, including BBC and ITV news, attending public consultation events as well as face-to-face meetings with near neighbours.  Sarah takes this responsibility very seriously and it has necessarily involved having detailed knowledge across the project as a whole. The client in this instance is very ‘slim’ and so Sarah is effectively working in a client-side role as the planning lead for the project, providing direction and strategy and working with her team at DWD and another planning consultancy.

Sarah and DWD also work closely with South Kesteven, Lincolnshire and Rutland to build relationships and consensus, where possible, for the project and negotiated the PPA with the three authorities. DWD also manage the relationship with PINS. Jonathan Harris, Emma-Jayne Hayward and Lucy Freeman are also working with Sarah to deliver DWD’s work on this project.

The DWD team are using our experience built across many years of working on solar and DCO projects to refine and develop a project which when submitted has the best possible chance of success.

Benefits:

When built, the Mallard Pass Solar Farm will generate enough renewable power to provide the equivalent of 92,000 homes with power while achieving a biodiversity net gain. The scheme will provide a significant contribution to national and local objectives for reducing carbon emissions and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

Value-Added Innovations:

DWD’s role in Mallard Pass is a much wider one than the traditional planning consultant role. We are a key member of the project team, working with the wider consortium to make key project decisions, advise on strategy and direction and are driving the programme to submission. As the public face of the project we also have a responsibility not just to ensure we have a consentable and deliverable project, but that we are able to genuinely show we are listening to consultation and able to articulate the benefits. 

Our experience to date on Mallard Pass has also shown the benefit of a having small, senior leadership group to drive decision making, with planning as part of this group.

We are also able to utilise tools that we have successfully implemented on other DCOs to bring efficiencies, such as the effective use of boiler plate text, trackers and templates. This means we do not need to reinvent approaches, but we know that there is always room for improvement and will continue to challenge ourselves to learn from each project.