Badger concerns stall €141 million Kildare solar farm
Gordon Deegan
Concerns for the future of badgers have helped stall plans for a €141 million 118 MW solar farm for a 428 acre site within the townlands of Cadamstown, Ballina, Clonuff and Garrisker in Co Kildare.
Cadamstown Solar Ltd are seeking planning permission from Kildare Co Council for the solar farm across 39 fields of agricultural land on a site 9.55km from Kinnegad.
The plan is facing local opposition and now Kildare Co Council has placed the scheme on hold seeking further information under a number of headings.
One area of concern for the Council is the fate of badgers on the site.
Documentation lodged with that application records the presence of two badger setts within the proposed development site.
Badgers are protected under the Wildlife Acts and the Council has told the applicants that the Department of Heritage advises that what the applicants are proposing in terms of mitigation "is not adequate to ensure the protection of badgers and their setts”
The Council requests a full assessment of the badger setts and impacts on them is conducted in order to inform any planning decision by the Council and ensure that badgers are protected, through planning conditions if necessary.
The Council states that "Mitigation by avoidance is the first step of the mitigation hierarchy and comprises measures taken to avoid creating impacts from the outset and must be considered first.”
The Council states that “additionally, the importance of the two setts within the badger’s territory must be established. Knowledge of alternative setts within the particular social group’s territory is required to ensure that badgers disturbed by this development are able to relocate to a suitable alternative refuge”.
Over 50 objections have been lodged against the planned solar farm and in an objection, Oliver and Heather Rowley of Cadamstown, Broadford, Co Kildare, have told the Council that the applicants “Want to turn our downland into an industrial complex”.
A planning report lodged with Kildare Co Council on behalf of the applicants states that the proposed development “will provide a stable and diversified source of revenue over a sustained period to landowners concerned while improving the ecological value of the site and safeguarding its reuse for agriculture in future”.
The report states that the proposal will result in a significant saving of CO2 per year compared to equivalent fossil fuel generation and will help County Kildare to fulfil their aims of increased renewable energy production.
Advancing the planning case for the proposal, the planning report states that the overall design of the proposed development “has carefully considered its setting within the confines of the county Kildare to ensure the potential effects upon landscape and visual receptors are limited”.
