PERMISSION is being sought to lay an underground electricity cable either side of the B3227 road in Preston Bowyer, near Milverton, for a controversial solar farm development.

Novus Renewable Services won planning consent in early 2024 for a solar energy development on 85 acres of high quality farmland at Preston Farm, Preston Bowyer, which will produce enough power for 7,000 homes.

Somerset Council’s planning committee decided producing renewable energy was more important then growing food and dismissed the objections of dozens of local people and Halse parish councillors, as well as the countryside charity CPRE.

However, Milverton parish councillors supported the project, while ‘noting conflicting arguments between food production and renewable energy’.

Now, Innova Renewables Developments has applied for planning permission for engineering works to lay an underground cable which will link the solar plant to a 33kV overhead line half-a-mile south of the B3227.

It wants to dig a 2.6-feet wide, four feet deep trench under 27 acres of fields used for pastoral grazing and crop cultivation which will cause the temporary closure of a public right of way and see the loss of four individual trees, two whole groups of trees, and parts of two other groups and five hedgerows.

Innova planner Grady Finley said: “The cable is an essential requirement needed to energise the consented solar farm at Preston Farm.”

Somerset Council planning officer Russell Williams said at the time, a solar farm could be justified on high grade agricultural land because it was only a ‘temporary’ use for 40 years.