Fresh fears new Rampion 2 Wind Farm will decimate Sussex countryside

The campaign group Cowfold v Rampion says that nature will be trashed with more than 114 mature oak trees cut down in one section alone at Oakendene in Cowfold.

The group says a new substation, planned as part of the project, would take up 12 acres of historic parkland at Oakendene Manor, that trees and vegetation will be cut down through the Cowfold stream of the River Adur and that masses of scrub and hedging will be lost – some of it more than 200 years old.

Campaign spokesperson Janine Creaye said: “The decades old Cowfold flood meadow scrub is irreplaceable. It supports a very dense population of nightingales, cuckoos, crested newts live in it, the very secretive adders, slow worms and grass snakes have been recorded all round here, skylarks use its cover to nest at the field edges safely and water voles and otters have been found in the Rampion surveys to live in the tributaries which are flanked with scrub. These are all endangered wildlife species in this country.”

She said Rampion proposed to use ‘a tiny one-track rural lane’ – Kent Street in Cowfold – as a major HGV access route for construction traffic. “The lane is only three meters wide and has little structure. It is flanked by banks, trees, scrub and wildflowers right up to the tarmac. Much of this vegetation will be removed and concreted over to make four lorry passing places and wider bell-mouth at the A272.

"It is all habitat for bats, badgers, hazel dormice, owls, buzzards, deer, crested newts, the site of a toad migration.”

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​Cowfold v Rampion maintains that the ecological destruction is not necessary to produce the same amount of ‘green’ energy proposed by Rampion and that an alternative location could be used for the substation “which would cause far less loss of oak trees, scrub, hedge and would avoid the River Adur catchment area round the Cowfold Stream, therefore avoid massive trashing of ecology."

A Rampion 2 spokesperson said: ‘We have gone through a comprehensive process of identifying issues, assessing impacts and proposing mitigations, which is all set out in the Environmental Statement submitted as part of our DCO application. The Planning Inspectorate’s Examination has then provided the opportunity for statutory bodies and individuals to express their views across a range of issues, which the project has responded to as part of the examination process. The Examining Authority will then weigh up the pros and cons of our proposals in making their recommendation next year.’

A decision on the wind farm is expected early next year.