Newsletter No5
A few days ago Mallard Pass Solar Farm sent an email update on their activities (see below). We just wanted to check you had received this. There are links provided to their newsletter brochure and FAQs, both of which are available on their website. You should also be receiving a hard copy in the post.
Whilst the information is professionally presented and there is a bit more detail than before, the scale of the project remains unchanged.
I would like to draw your attention to the next Public Consultation by the developers which is being held in the Spring. Starting later this month they will be consulting local councils and parish councils on the format and methodology of this consultation, known as the Draft Statement of Community Consultation (SoCC). We will be seeking your feedback.
The full e-update from Mallard Pass Solar Farm is below:
“We are pleased to inform you of three key updates regarding the project and its development:
“Thank you for having registered your interest to keep up to date with our proposals for Mallard Pass Solar Farm.
- The submission of our Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Scoping Report to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS),
- The publication of our community newsletter and Consultation Summary Report (CSR), and
- Responses to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) from Stage One consultation, now available on the Mallard Pass Solar Farm website.
We are grateful to have received a significant volume of feedback during Stage One and thank you for engaging in our consultation. Your views and comments have helped to improve our understanding of the local area and the aspects of Mallard Pass that you consider important for us to prioritise as we develop our proposals.
We acknowledge there was a high level of initial opposition to our early-stage proposals for Mallard Pass Solar Farm from those who responded. This feedback is important as we need to understand the basis for those concerns and to look at how they can be addressed as the project develops further.
Our focus is on providing accurate and honest information that builds up an understanding of how Mallard Pass can generate low carbon energy whilst minimising impacts on the local environment and surrounding communities. We hope that these newly updated materials will offer a comprehensive overview of where the proposals for Mallard Pass currently stand, and what to expect next as we move forward in the planning and consultation process.
EIA Scoping Report
We successfully submitted our EIA Scoping Report to PINS on Friday 04 February 2022. The consideration of the Scoping Report is a specific step in the process where PINS looks at how we propose to assess the environmental effects of Mallard Pass. It does not contain any further design detail of our proposals and is based on a broad site outline, consistent with our early-stage proposals. To view this Report, available on PINS’ website, please click here. For additional details on the EIA process, please refer to page 16-17 of our Stage One Main Document, linked here.
Community newsletter
We have also issued a community newsletter that provides information on the status of the project. This has been published on our website, linked here, as well as mailed to the approximately 13,000 households located within our Core Consultation Zone. The newsletter includes an overview of the feedback received during Stage One consultation and how this feedback will inform the design process moving forward. It also explains how those interested can continue to engage with the project through the next stages of consultation.
FAQs
Responses to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) from our Stage One consultation are now also available to view on our website, linked here for your reference. We appreciate that by starting our consultation early, there were many questions we could not answer in full during Stage One. Through these FAQs, which provide answers to the most frequent questions asked during this period, we seek to supply more detailed information on our proposals and provide further transparency and clarity in response to your queries.
The Mallard Pass Solar Farm project team remain committed to providing additional details and information regarding our proposals and look forward to further engagement with you as these continue to develop. In the spring, when we start our Stage Two statutory consultation, we will be able to introduce our project in more detail and show how early feedback has shaped our project proposals.
If you have any further queries about Mallard Pass Solar Farm, please do not hesitate to get touch via our communications lines indicated below. Further, should you require any hard copy, large print, audio or braille versions of these documents, please contact us at the details provided.”
Kind regards,
Mallard Pass Action Group