We recognise the contribution solar power can make towards a sustainable solution to the country’s energy needs.

In Suffolk, more applications for increasingly large commercial solar farms are coming forward now than ever before.

SPS supports proposals when they are proportionate in size and are well contained within the landscape.

Too often we see planning applications that will disproportionately and negatively impact the landscape and communities expected to host these schemes.

Read SPS’ position on commercial scale solar power schemes in Suffolk for more detail on our call for better delivery of solar farms in the county.

Sunnica – Suffolk to host country’s largest solar farm

The 500MW solar installation from Sunnica Energy Farm will be the biggest in the country to date and will include a number of Battery Energy Storage Systems in addition to the solar arrays. 

Located at four sites, the largest will cover around 1,700 acres very close to the villages of Worlington and Freckenham in the west of the county. A site in East Cambridgeshire near Chippenham and Snailwell will impact views from the Limekiln Gallops at Newmarket.

Throughout the application process, SPS raised serious concerns around the sheer scale and scattered nature of the proposals and their impact on the landscape and on local communities. We met with local residents to advise them about the NSIP planning process. They set up the campaign group SayNotoSunnica and have worked tirelessly to resist this application.

The scheme was subject to Examination from September 2022 through to early 2023.

A decision to approve the plans was issued by the new Energy Security and Net Zero Minister, Ed Miliband, in July 2024.

Despite the Examining Authority’s recommendation for refusal, the environmental harm is considered to be outweighed by the public benefit of energy generation.

The decision letter can be read here.

Sunnica solar energy approval – our reaction

Our Sunnica responses:

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