As a local councillor, I take planning matters seriously and, over the last 25 years, I have been participated in hundreds of planning committee meetings. I have also submitted evidence to a large number of planning appeals and spoken at numerous hearings and even the odd public inquiry.
Last year, Cornwall Council refused planning permission for a sixty-hectare solar farm at Trerice in St Dennis Parish. The applicants have appealed to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate and, in recent weeks, I have been assisting the Parish Council with their representations.
The applicants are arguing that the St Dennis area has been “influenced by existing industrial and mining activity” and the landscape is therefore “less sensitive” to change and more able to “accommodate” large developments, such as solar farms.
St Dennis Parish Council has taken the opposite view. It knows that their Parish contains approximately 1,250 hectares, which includes 350 hectares of the Goss Moor. Of the remaining 900 hectares, more than 255 (28%) have been industrialised. It believes that the proposal site for the solar farm is part of an important tract of good quality farmland of medieval origin in the western part of the Parish, which is otherwise surrounded by clayworks and other industrial installations. And it is arguing that the cumulative industrialisation of the locality has gone far enough and the landscape does not have capacity to “accommodate” more industrialisation.
Interestingly, the area was first recorded in an extremely rare land charter dating to 1049, which shows how part of Trerice was granted by King Edward to Eadulf, described as “his faithful minister.”
Sometimes, the planning appeal process works for communities. I can recall a number of decisions where the inspector backed the local community, but I have also had plenty of less-then-positive experiences of the process and the resultant top-down imposed rulings. That said, at least there will be a public hearing into the Trerice Solar Farm, due to be held on 21st April, at which people will be able to make their views known.
Will that be the case going forward? I am really angry that, from April, the UK Government is introducing a new “expedited written representations procedure” for dealing with planning appeals. The spin says it is all about speeding up decision-making and reducing administrative burdens.
And yet the guidance says that “no new evidence can be submitted at appeal stage” and there will be no opportunity for any “third party” representations, such as the people actually affected by any proposed development. This will further undermine a planning system that is frankly already broken.
Article published in the Cornish Guardian (25th February 2026) and West Briton (26th February 2026) newspapers