From the Parish Council – May 2021

Plans to construct a solar power station on the outskirts of Scruton are expected to be submitted to Hambleton District Council in the next couple of weeks.

As part of the consultative process in February, your Parish Council wrote to the agents for this scheme, Lightrock Power, expressing a number of concerns and asking for more clarity on certain points. Some two months later, SPC has still not received a response.

Lightrock Power has simply refused to engage in any meaningful conversation which is in direct contravention of proper consultative procedure. There is a simple reason for this – Lightrock were asked some pretty direct questions which will have been extremely difficult to answer without the inclusion of an admission that the promotional literature issued in January was a deliberate attempt to mislead and misrepresent. For many Parishioners, the installation shown on the Lightrock Pamphlet will be the only point of reference as to how a solar farm might look upon completion. Readers of the pamphlet are entitled to believe it is how the Scruton installation will look when complete. Its benign appearance is designed to encourage support for the scheme and minimise opposition.

One of the questions SPC asked of Lightrock was for confirmation that its brochure is a true representation of the Scruton plan and that the Scruton project would not end up looking like the nearby Kirkby Fleetham installation, which is of grotesque design and although appropriate in its current location, would be totally unacceptable and inappropriate situated so close to Scruton Village. As stated earlier, SPC is still awaiting a response.