Reader writes about approval of Mallard Pass Solar Farm - and other letters from Lincolnshire and Rutland
Readers have had plenty to say on what’s in the news.
Here we share some of the letters, emails and comments that have come in over the week, including this cartoon from John Elson.
Don’t forget, you can always get in touch by emailing news@lincsonline.co.uk
Thank you for support
As a candidate in the recent election, I want to thank CEO Mark Andrews and the Elections Team at Rutland County Council for the efficient, friendly, and comprehensive support I received throughout.
Everything was done to ensure we had all the information we needed every step of the way.
In addition, the staff worked incredibly hard to ensure the people of Rutland could exercise their democratic rights by delivering missing ballots across the county and extending office hours.
I have spoken to candidates from several other authorities; many have not had such a good experience.
Thank you
Joanna Burrows
Parliamentary candidate for Rutland & Stamford - Rejoin UK
Why was this rejected?
This week could have seen the opening of a new day support centre for adults with disabilities in Oakham. A wonderful group, Support and Connections who I know from Melton, wanted to bring their service focused on building the independence, confidence and personal development of their service users to Rutland.
Yet on Friday, Coun Nick Begy and his officers rejected the application to convert one of the units at Oakham Enterprise Park.
How I wonder could they reject this new service for our disabled community, which would also bring new jobs to our county, despite never visiting the site or meeting with the service providers.
The council claimed the centre will create an “oppressive environment” due to one room not having a window. Yet the council runs a day centre in the old prison with bars across the windows?
I’m calling for the council to re-think their decision. We are very fortunate to attract such an excellent organisation to Rutland and we should be giving the centre our absolute and full support. There were service users hoping to start with them this week, they are being let down.
Alicia Kearns
Rutland & Stamford MP (Con)
Responses to Mallard Pass
Many people in Essendine and the surrounding area will be disappointed at the decision of the Secretary of State for Energy to give approval for the Mallard Pass Solar Farm. As a county councillor I have made representations to Ed Miliband in his first days in office, in the hope that I might have influenced this decision. I would also acknowledge that throughout the long gestation of this project our MP, Alicia Kearns, has sought to cogently represent the views of residents to ministers in this and the previous administration.
What has not been done by our MP, however, is to explain how this development has come to be approved in its current form. It is as though Rutland and Essendine have just been unlucky in the UK solar farm lottery, but this would be to ignore the woeful lack of strategic planning that has surrounded our previous Government’s approach to renewable energy.
Firstly, the site configuration has been driven by the failure since the 2008 Climate Change Act of successive Tory Governments, to take any steps to develop the National Grid in the transition from thermal to renewable energy generation and the associated changes in power distribution. Indeed, the importance of this change has only recently been recognised and this is why Mallard Pass will connect through an existing sub-station on the West side of the East Coast Mainline.
Secondly, the concerns raised about supplies of solar panels from China are justified on ethical grounds, and confirmed by Canadian Solar’s public commitment that slave labour would not used in the production of these panels. But Mallard Pass is just one of many solar farms constructed in the UK over the past six or seven years, the majority of which have used Chinese solar panels, with nary a word of challenge from our Government. We need an energy strategy and ethics policy to inform what we will, or will not, seek to produce domestically; Labour is committed to such a plan.
Then there is the concern at the loss of some high-quality agricultural land in Rutland. I would argue that without a Government food strategy that sets out the expectations for domestic production, it is difficult for Government to prioritise any one piece of land over another. Mr Sunak decided earlier this year that, notwithstanding the food supply chain disruption created by the war in Ukraine, there was no need for a domestic food strategy or a framework within which our farmers could function and plan.
Lastly, this decision has been taken due to pressure of time, under existing legislation all of which was voted for by Conservative MPs. Mallard Pass was intended to be approved in May 2024 but was delayed for what I would suggest were wholly political reasons.
Coun Ramsay Ross
Rutland County Council - Leader of the Labour Group
Liberal Democrats are all in favour of moving from fossil-fuelled power to various types of sustainably generated power, including solar power. However, we also believe that the positioning of solar farms has to be proportionally assessed against the harm they will have on the surrounding countryside and its occupants.
The Mallard Pass development is simply too big and will overpower both the environment and potentially the local residents’ well-being.
According to the press, the new Minister Ed. Milliband bragged that it has taken him only 3 days to rubber-stamp the pre-prepared recommendations to approve this site (plus two other
monster sites in Suffolk and Oxon, the three totalling over 7,000 acres of good agricultural land) that he says he found on his desk already programmed for approval.
It is therefore clear that the Tory Government had already made up its mind to approve this site and then repeatedly contrived to dodge making it public, presumably in an effort to protect their MPsvote in those three constituencies.A further example of its duplicitous behaviour right to the very end!
The publication of this decision without any further thought and consideration by the new Minister, also somewhat be-littles the superb efforts that the MallardPass Action Group put
into presenting their carefully and objectively assessed presentation, and the many hours that RCC’s PlanningOfficials had to devote in complying with the demands of both the complex decision-making process and the numerous points raised by the Inspectorate.
What is also now apparent after reading the 39 pages of the Mallard Pass decision, is that
the decision also systematically demolished all detailed issues of concern,such as the effects on the local environment, local ecology, natural habitats, loss of agricultural land, effect on local people, scarring of the landscape, heritage,with the full knowledge that this decision creates a precedent for any similar application for a solar farm, that goes to the Inspectorate for a decision, regardless of its size.
The fact that the previous Tory gov was prepared to agree these criteria and that they have also now been so willingly signed-off by the new Labour Government, effectively means that nowhere is now safe from solar farm development.
Coun Paul Browne
Rutland County Council (Lib Dem - Oakham South. Portfolio Holder for planning)
Shame On You Ed Milliband!
You have overridden the concerns of many people in Lincolnshire and this area concerning Mallard Pass, and in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.
Surely net zero energy projects cannot be allowed to swallow up valuable farm land at the expense of being able to independently feed the people who live in this country.
Consideration has not been given to the overall effect that these projects will have on what is the most productive farm land in England.
We will become increasingly a huge power storage area for the rest of the country.
A great deal has been said about supporting British Farmers, it seems to be so much hot air - green energy?
Was it all part of his plan in passing these projects just days after coming to power- to make the UK “A clean energy superpower”.
Joan Brocklebank
Stamford
I wasn’t seriously injured - this time
On Wednesday, July 10, I fell over a pavement in Red Lion Square, Stamford. Luckily I did not seriously hurt myself but I was quite shaken up. I am 75 and have fallen over in Stamford about five or six times. Some of the pavements and A-boards are very dangerous especially to older people.
Something should be done about it as somebody may be seriously injured or worse. I try very hard not to fall over but some of the surfaces are disgraceful.
Name and address supplied
Surprise at decision
Like Lynda North (Your Views, July 12), I too was surprised to learn that Turnpike Close is not to house all of the Grantham waste disposal site, but merely the offices and vehicle storage from Alexander Road. This seems a strange decision, particularly as vacation of the Alexander Road site would create a brownfield site for housing with infrastructure already in place.
I also agree that the current site is no longer fit for purpose. I recently visited the site, queuing for over 20 minutes to get in, and then struggling throughout the site for safe access to the cardboard recycling area. No doubt like many other Grantham residents, it is now necessary to take our cardboard boxes which will not all fit in our recycling bins to a waste disposal site. Why is it that SKDC will no longer collect cardboard left beside our bins as previously? Could this change in policy not be reconsidered as it would almost certainly ease pressure on the waste disposal site, wherever it is in future.
And finally, why are our three bins (black, silver, purple topped) not emptied on a straight three weekly cycle? My black bin is emptied every fortnight when about half full, whereas the silver and purple topped bins are emptied every four weeks and are full to overflowing. Are SKDC going to carry out a review of their new policies in the light of current experience from residents?
M Edwards
Gonerby Hill Foot, Grantham
Nowhere to park
I know people who go on a regular basis to Boston Pilgrim Hospital will be aware of the ongoing problem of finding a parking space. As I have to attend there on a regular basis, we always go at least 45 minutes before our time to try to find a parking space.
On July 10, as we drove into the car park, we soon became aware we were behind a long line of cars that were looking for a car space. As we drove further, we found we had to manoeuvre between another line of cars that were stationary on the right-hand side of the car-park. It was obvious that they had given up on finding a car park space. Four times we drove round in the hope of finding a car space. Eventually knowing I would be late for my appointment we parked behind another car on a grass curve. This space was not blocking other cars in any way.
After my appointment and having bought a parking ticket we were upset to find we had a parking ticket on our windscreen for parking on the grass curve. We also noticed many other cars had parking tickets. When we approached the car park attendant and asked why we have a parking ticket being that there are no places available to park. He said take it up with the Lincolnshire Health Trust.
Firms like ParkingEye take every advantage they can from situations like this and my sympathies go towards all the staff at Pilgrim who must deal with this daily. My only wish that the money ParkingEye make would go to the NHS instead of ParkingEye. However, the question remains where can you park where there is no space left to park.
Sheila Barker
Harrowby Lane, Grantham
Thank you for support
Thank you to everyone that came and supported us on Saturday (July 13) at our table top sale at the Isaac Newton Shopping Centre. We raised £450 on the day. We look forward to seeing you at the next sale on Saturday, July 27.
Anne Lockwood
Doris Banham Dog Rescue volunteer
Elderly a priority
The National Pensioners’ Convention is calling on our newly elected government to urgently prioritise a strategy for the UK’s rapidly ageing population. A fifth of people in the UK are now over 65 and within two decades that will rise to one in four, or a quarter of the entire country. But while more of us are living longer, our healthy life expectancy is plummeting. Exacerbated by our struggling health and care services. And more of us, 2.1 million to date, are living in poverty.Despite their welcome pre-election promises to protect the triple lock on state pension increases, and to start to establish a desperately needed National Health Care Service, the NPC is concerned that the problems of the older population are not high on their priorities.The Secretary of the NPC, Jan Shortt, said: “Older people were largely invisible in the pre-election debates on the party manifestos. So, the NPC will be looking carefully at how the new government engages with older people on their promises and whether they are open to working on a 360-degree strategy for ageing well, particularly through an independent Commissioner for Older People and Ageing in England, as they have in Wales, and Nothern Ireland. We hope to be able to work with the new government on this issue, and many others, including free social care for the one in five of us, 13 million, now over 65 who are increasingly living in poor health. Over and above all this is the issue of the push to digital across all areas of our lives, from banking to the NHS, and travel to shopping, this is leaving our ageing population dangerously behind.”Even maintaining the triple lock, while this is welcome, is not going to be enough to help the millions of older people who are going to increasingly require complex health and social care provision in future.I hope the new government considers this when they look at the care needs of the one in four of us, a quarter of the population, who will be 65 within two decades. The recent election results mean we have a real chance for change, but change won’t happen with this election alone, it will come in the coming days, weeks and years.
Rodney Sadd
Crowland
Pay for furniture!
This is a letter to the two men who took a pine kitchen table and four chairs which were for sale on the driveway at 42 Albert Street, Spalding. It was advertised as requesting a sensible offer as the proceeds were going to be donated to charity. Our telephone number was also displayed on the notice attached to a chair. Maybe they misunderstood the wording ( they took the notice with them, and perhaps intended getting in touch but they could have knocked on the door at the time). It was taken on Sunday, July 14, between 2pm and 4.30pm. We checked the driveway on several occasions and didn't see them go ourselves. They were seen by a neighbour but it wasn't thought strange as it was assumed they had purchased it. If they would like to post a £20 donation through our letter box anonymously that would be a satisfactory conclusion to the matter and the bereaved family that donated the items would not be upset (and take away our second thought on why it was taken as we always believe in the good in people).
Resident at No 42 Albert St
Don’t forget, you can always get in touch by emailing news@lincsonline.co.uk
