An appeal over the refusal of plans which would see a solar farm built on more than 90 acres of countryside near Gillingham has concluded.

An application for land at Park Farm, was refused by Dorset Council’s planning committee in January on the grounds it would harm the surrounding landscape and heritage assets, including the Kings Court Palace moating site and Gillingham Forest Deer Park.

However, developer Low Carbon appealed, calling for the decision to be overturned.

Planning inspector Phillip Ware was called in to review the refusal of the scheme.

The hearing got underway last week (read here), with both Low Carbon and Dorset Council making representations to the government-appointed inspector.

In closing arguments delivered at the appeal on Wednesday (October 5), Mark Westmoreland Smith, for the council, said the authority accepted the need to provide renewable energy.

However, he said the proposed scheme was not ‘appropriate’ in the setting, as prescribed in the local plan for the area.

He said the benefits of the scheme did not outweigh the factors cited in the refusal.

Mr Humphries, for Low Carbon, said progress in developing renewable energy sites had been slow – not only in Dorset.

“This decision is an important litmus test,” he added.

“Are we as a society serious about meeting the challenge of climate change, or is it just talk?”

If the site near Gillingham was not suitable for such development, then ‘we really are in trouble’, he added.

He said the council’s own climate strategy said it would need around 19,000 acres of solar sites to achieve a ‘fair share’ of renewable energy, meaning the need for farms like that proposed ‘is huge’.

“Even with future improvements in solar array performance … the number of schemes needed is just enormous … we’ve got to be realistic about that,” he said.

The need amounts to several hundred solar farms of the size proposed, he added.

Mr Ware will now consider the arguments of both sides before releasing a decision.

The inquiry is now closed and no details on a decision date have been confirmed.