The Cavendish team has been working on a proposal for a 20MW solar farm with battery storage in Rushcliffe Borough Council brought forward by RWE Solar & Storage. From organising an exhibition event open to the local community, to engaging with political stakeholders and running an ad campaign to help spread word about the project, the team have delivered across the board.
Bente Klein,
Solar & Storage Project Development Manager,
RWE
Background
Based out of Nottingham, Cavendish’s East Midlands team brought to the table a comprehensive understanding of both the political landscape and the rural challenges facing this type of development.
With solar having become particularly contentious in Rushcliffe following a flurry of utility scale applications, Cavendish undertook preliminary research assessing common reasons for objection and identifying key stakeholders at the local authority.
Strategy
Cavendish secured an on-site meeting with political stakeholders on the planning authority and Cotgrave Town Council, helping to position the plans favourably with key stakeholders at an early stage.
The consultation was publicised by a community newsletter, a social media campaign and press releases. The consultation received a total of 39 responses, with feedback relayed to RWE, who were able to make small changes to better position the plans locally.
Having identified local supporters, Cavendish developed a supporter mobilisation portal following submission and contacted them to ask them to make their views known directly to the council. Cavendish’s supporter portal helps to simplify the planning portal, encouraging comments from a wider demographic across the local community.
This work was successful, securing 36 public representations in support of the proposals on the planning file, with zero comments received in objection.
This evidence of local support helped to satisfy political representatives, and led to Cotgrave Town Council, the neighbouring Radcliffe-on-Trent Parish Council and all three Cotgrave ward members at Rushcliffe Borough Council outlining that they had no objections to the application.
The
results.
With a large number of supportive comments from the public and no objections received from local representatives, Rushcliffe Borough Council granted delegated consent to the project despite its green belt location.
- 36 supporters on the Rushcliffe Borough Council planning file
- 0 bjections on the Rushcliffe Borough Council planning file
- 0 objections from local political representatives
In a landscape of community opposition groups, and refusals at planning committee, the solar approval was picked up by the BBC who lauded the overwhelmingly positive response for a development that can too often find itself at the mercy of NIMBYism.
BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg41pll4n5o
36
Supporters on the Rushcliffe Borough Council planning file.
0
Objections on the planning files or from political representatives.
