Road to be shut as power cable for huge solar farm installed

Developers have said they will have to fully close a narrow road for a major power cable linking a solar farm the size of approximately 1,140 Olympic swimming pools to the national grid. The cable will run from the 49.9MW Willows Green Solar Farm near Felsted will the built mainly under roads for 5.3km east of the proposed solar farm to Braintree Substation near Galleys Corner.

The cable will extend east for about 1.3km from the southeastern corner of the solar farm, following the adopted highway along Blackley Lane towards London Road. It will then continue along Bakers Lane for 1.4km, then turn onto Buck Hill Lane for (345 m) before heading to Notley Road for 60m.

The section up to Buck Hill will need traffic signals to manage traffic. But it is not anticipated that any full road closure would be required in that area.

But Buck Hill is a narrow rural road, allowing only one traffic lane at a time. Because of this limitation, the road will need to be temporarily closed for a week during the construction of this section.

However, there is an alternative route at Church Road, which reconnects back to Notley Road to the north and is a diversion of 1.06 km. This road also reconnects back to Witham Road south of Buck Hill Road. Therefore, the temporary closure of Buck Hill is not expected to result in significant disruption. After this the proposed route passes through private property through fields to the substation.

A statement as part of a planning application to Chelmsford, Braintee and Uttlesford, said: “The majority of the public highway route is under wide single-carriageway roads; disruption will be minimised through the closure of only one lane of the carriageway and effective traffic management. Only one small section of the public highway route will require a complete road closure for construction to take place (Buck Hill). It has been demonstrated that an acceptable diversion route exists to minimise disruption.”

Uttlesford District Council’s planning committee approved plans by Clearstone Energy Ltd for a 114 hectare solar farm east of School Lane, between the villages of Felstead and Great Notley, at the beginning of August.

According to a council report, the farm would provide enough clean electricity to power 15,200 homes or 26,000 electric cars. But the council is seeking further assurances over guarantees it will be decommissioned after 40 years and how much this will cost, via a series of planning agreements.

References

1. ^{^} Essex village where solar farm size of 1,140 Olympic swimming pools will be built (www.essexlive.news)