Benefits

The scheme entails a number of environmental and social benefits:

Environmental benefits

Firstly, within the wider sustainability context, the potential site identified at Westhide can make a significant contribution to renewable energy and carbon emission targets, by generating enough green electricity to power over 8,900 homes – equivalent to around 27% of the number of households in the Hereford locality, and offsetting around 6,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.

Secondly, ground-mounted solar PV technology brings with it a significant ecological net benefit to the site on which it is installed. These benefits include:

• The land used for the scheme will be taken out of the monoculture of arable crop production for up to three decades and reseeded with a wildflower mix, thus creating circa 48 hectares of species-rich grassland under the panels; this is not only a substantial benefit to a variety of wildlife, but also improves soil quality.
• There is also provision of 0.5 hectares of wild bird seed mix of in parts of the site.
• Existing valuable habitat, such as woodland and hedgerows, is retained as part of the scheme and further enhanced with additional planting (which has the added benefit of screening the site visually). Extensive enhancements to the landscape include a total of 0.38 km of native species-rich hedgerow, and 0.79 km of native species-rich hedgerows with trees, as well as re-wilding areas.
• Westhide Estate has insisted on the creation of additional habitat, with supplementary features and ecological enhancements, such as the introduction of 10 bat boxes, 10 bird boxes and several reptile hibernacula.

Local benefits

Public access

The fields that have been identified as suitable for the solar power development are currently not accessible to the general public.

TEKSS has included a permissive path along the periphery of the site, which will increase interconnectivity with local footpaths.

Community benefit fund

A community benefit fund is being proposed of an annual payment of £350 per installed megawatt of solar for the duration of 10 years.

This means that based on the current design, which has an installed capacity of 24.6MW, the annual payment would come to £8,610, amounting to a total of £86,100 over the course of 10 years.

The Westhide community benefit fund will be ring-fenced for spending on projects that improve sustainability and education in the local community.

It should be noted that depending on the nature of the community proposals seeking funding from the community benefit fund, there may also be match-funding opportunities available from other sources, which could increase the size of the fund significantly.

Further details on governance and the administration of the fund will be agreed, subject to planning permission.

Eco-housing

The solar scheme will provide funding for an eco-housing regereration option at the derelict Townsend Farm yard, without which either an agri-business or a commercial housing option are more commerically viable.

Education

If the solar power project is successful TEKSS will enable educational outreach efforts to take advantage of the excellent educational opportunity for local school children to learn about sustainable energy production as well as the associated benefits to wildlife, habitat and the general ecology of the site.

This will be facilitated by a proposed interpreation board alongside the proposed permissive footpath and enabling site visits with relevant educational experts.