Here’s the response that was written by West Wratting Parish Council during the Christmas holiday period 2024. We had to write this to respond to the scoping Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report by Kingsway that was published in late December 2024, with a deadline for comments of 14th January 2025.
The scoping EIA is essentially asking the planning inspectorate (PINS) “this is what I intend to put in the EIA, is that acceptable?”. It’s an opportunity for a developer to try to avoid having to do work on certain topics.
Asking councils to work on this sort of planning material during the holiday season is highly discouraged by the planning inspectorate, but probably as a deliberate tactic Kingsway (or Downing Renewable Developments) ignored that advice. It obliterated my Christmas holiday!
The scoping EIA is highly technical, so it’s challenging for Parish Councils to read and respond. In addition to the scoping report’s 313 pages there were several appendices (that can be downloaded from Kingsway’s document library) which meant that well over 400 pages of technical information had to be read, checked, and scrutinised. By researching online and having video discussions with Chenge Taruvinga from Greater Cambridge Shared Planning (GCSP) I was able get some useful guidance that I was able to pass on to other Parish Councils that I knew were affected by the Kingsway solar development.
Here’s the final report from West Wratting Parish Council. I sent an early draft of this to may other parish councils to help them with their own responses, and you may see some similarities. SCDC thanked us for sending them our draft which helped them write their own response.
I’d particularly like to thank the following for their help in writing our EIA scoping response:
- Chenge Taruvinga, Greater Cambridge Shared Planning, for guidance.
- Sarah Franklin, Weston Colville, for her excellent ideas and proofreading.
- All West Wratting Councilors for their contributions to the document.
- KSCA members for help with photography and discussions.
The scoping response of some other parish councils are linked from the West Wratting website’s Solar Farm page. All consultees’ responses are also listed in the appendix of the (very long) final opinion document of the Planning Inspectorate, which they wrote after reading all the comments. It’s worth a read to see where our hard work over Christmas went, although I have to warn you that you may be disappointed by some of the things that PINS allowed to be scoped-out from the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
Dr Simon Chandler
West Wratting Parish Council
March 2025