Worried Sussex village residents raise fresh concerns over wind and solar farm plans

Proposed site of a new electricity substation - part of the Rampion 2 wind farm project - in Cowfold.

There are proposals for a large solar farm to be built on fields to the west of Cowfold and a huge electricity substation to the east of the village.

Floods of angry protests are now being made by residents who say that the village will be ‘ruined’ and they will face years of traffic chaos and pollution if the developments go ahead.

A public consultation into the solar farm proposals – by a company called Low Carbon – is to come to an end this week. They are seeking approval to establish the solar farm for a period of 40 years after which, they say, it would be decommissioned.

Proposed site of a new solar farm in Cowfold

They say that the farm – known as Cobwood Solar Farm – would generate enough energy to power 16,000 houses a year.

Meanwhile, the wind farm project will connect to the national electricity transmission network via underground cables from Climping to an existing electricity substation at Bolney via the new Rampion 2 substation on a site at Oakendene in Cowfold.

Rampion 2 is the proposed extension of Rampion 1 wind farm, off the Sussex coast.

Residents formed a campaign group – Cowfold v Rampion – earlier this year in a bid to halt the project. It is estimated that it would take up to six years to complete the development and would involve diversions along narrow country lanes and a significant increase in traffic.

Local resident Mrs Gerry Huggett said: “With both of these projects, no thought whatsoever has been given to the residents.”

She said the A272 stretch between Buck Barn traffic lights and Cowfold had ‘weekly collisions which will only get worse if plans for the solar farm and substation go ahead.”

Fellow Cowfold resident Ian Redman said the proposals amounted to a “crazy destruction of countryside and the accompanying pollution during what will be a very long construction cycle.”

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Another resident also hit out at the Rampion proposals as “absolute insanity to add extra lorries to the A272 not just for a few weeks but for years.”

No decisions have yet been made.