A special Planning Committee meeting is to be held to consider East Cambridgeshire District Council’s official response to Sunnica.

The meeting will take place on Thursday 3 November at The Mandeville Hall, Burwell from 10.30am.

The meeting will be open to the public (residents, parish councils, interested parties and action groups) and the developer.  Those who wish to speak at the meeting will need to register by contacting democratic.services@eastcambs.gov.uk before 10am on Wednesday 2 November.

Because the Sunnica Energy Site is a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) the decision on whether or not to grant planning permission rests with the Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and not East Cambridgeshire District Council.

Instead, the Council is a Statutory Consultee and will make representations on the application to the Planning Inspectorate which administers the application process on behalf of the Secretary of State.

The special Planning Committee meeting will determine East Cambridgeshire District Council’s formal response, which will be made in a Written Representation to be submitted no later than Friday 11 November.

Earlier this year, the Council submitted its Relevant Representation response to Sunnica which can be found at the following link:

https://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/local-development-framework/sunnica-energy-farm

Since then it has continued to work in partnership with Cambridgeshire County Council, West Suffolk Council and Suffolk County Council to produce a joint Local Impact Report - a factual report which expands on the issues raised in the Relevant Representations– which will be submitted no later than Wednesday 19 October.

Sunnica Ltd is proposing to build a nationally significant energy farm generating in excess of 50MW of renewable electricity.

If approved it will stretch across four locations, including the East Cambridgeshire villages of Isleham, Chippenham, Kennett and Snailwell; and Freckenham and Worlington in Suffolk.

Each site will feature multiple fields of solar photovoltaic panels and battery energy storage infrastructure, which will connect to each other and the Burwell National Grid Substation by an underground cable.

Following the submission of the Written Representation, all the evidence will be examined by the Planning Inspectorate in a process which is likely to take around six months. The Secretary of State then has a further three months to make the decision on whether to grant or refuse development consent.