Consultation

Solar Panel Field

The statutory consultation for Beacon Fen Energy Park opened on 22 January 2024 and ran for six weeks.

Low Carbon has consulted on proposals to build a new solar and battery storage park on land to the east of Sleaford, Lincolnshire. Beacon Fen Energy Park’s solar array is proposed to the north of the village of Heckington, while a cable route corridor is proposed south-east of the solar array connecting to Bicker Fen substation.

The statutory consultation presented refined proposals for the project, including biodiversity enhancement areas and a proposed bespoke access road to reduce the impact on local roads during construction. It also outlined what changes have been made since early (non-statutory) consultation in May/June 2023.

We are now collecting and analysing your feedback on the proposals, which will help us refine our plans before submitting our DCO application to the Planning Inspectorate.

Targeted Consultations

In early 2024 we identified minor additional areas of land, which may be required to facilitate access to the project site. We wrote directly to those parties affected to advise on the detail. The inclusion of these additional areas of land does not impact on any of the underlying information included in the statutory consultation. We therefore undertook a targeted consultation in relation to these areas, which concluded in March 2024. All feedback received was compiled and analysed by the project team.

An additional targeted consultation exercise began on Monday 16 December 2024 regarding some small changes to how we may construct the project, limited to the following locations:

1. Inclusion of Triton Knoll’s access track, Doubletwelves Drove and Bicker Drove for use by construction traffic associated with the National Grid substation extension works. This change will ensure construction vehicles will avoid rural Bicker roads as construction routes which will only be used in case of emergency. Ecotricity have included these roads within their application for the Heckington Fen Solar Park DCO and similarly proposed that the rural Bicker roads will only be used in case of emergency.

2. Inclusion of circa 262m of additional private track off Great Hale Drove for use by construction traffic vehicles (apart from Abnormal Indivisible Loads) to the refined cable route corridor. This short section of track was inadvertently excluded from the project’s red-line boundary at our previous consultation, which we are correcting. We are also including widened accesses to the Solar Array Area.

3. Inclusion of land to facilitate the construction of a pedestrian footbridge across the Car Dyke in the northeastern corner of the Solar Array Area, and inclusion of land off Ferry Lane to secure temporary access rights to facilitate the construction of the footbridge. This is a proposed enhancement to allow permissive access by local communities along new permissive pathways within the Solar Array Area.

The inclusion of these additional areas of land does not impact on any of the information included in the statutory consultation and our published Preliminary Environmental Information Report (PEIR) remains relevant. We have written to a small number of statutory and localised consultees regarding changes to the project parameters. The targeted consultation closed on Sunday 19 January 2025. Related documents can be found here. All feedback received will be analysed ahead of finalising the DCO application.

We held four in-person events and two webinars during our statutory consultation. You can see our webinars below. Information available at the in-person events can also be read online here.

 


 

Preliminary Environmental Impact Report

As part of the consultation, communities and stakeholders were able to read and have their say on the project’s Preliminary Environmental Impact Report (PEIR). A digital copy of the PEIR is available to read and download here.

Biodiversity

Delivering Beacon Fen Energy Park allows Low Carbon to look at creating new and enhancing existing habitats.

In developing our proposals, a range of design and operational measures have been considered to minimise environmental effects. These include, but are not limited to;

  • The creation of buffer zones around areas of woodland, hedgerows, ditches and badger setts
  • Minimisation of lighting, with no floodlighting at night
  • Creation of new habitats

Our early (non-statutory) consultation phase closed on Sunday 18 June 2023.

During the consultation we

  • Held three in-person consultation events and two online webinars
  • Met with a number of local parish/town councils to brief them on the proposed project
  • Held meetings with county and district councillors
  • Visited many near neighbours to the proposed site to discuss the project with them

The feedback received from stakeholders is vital in informing the developing proposals for Beacon Fen Energy Park. Thanks to all of the local residents who provided their input. You can view a summary of our early (non-statutory) consultation feedback in our latest newsletter here.

We held three in-person events at key local sites throughout the five-week consultation. This enabled us to present our latest plans, while also giving the local community the opportunity to speak directly to the team and ask any questions. A further two webinars were also organised, giving those people who were unable to attend an event, but who wanted to find out more, further chances to do so. The webinars were recorded and can be seen below.

Separately, our Environmental Impact Assessment scoping request was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate, which returned a Scoping Opinion on 26 May 2023. You can view the Scoping Opinion here.

Following the initial early (non-statutory) consultation and the community and stakeholder feedback received, we withdrew Beacon Fen South from our Development Consent Order application in July 2023. We will be progressing with solar and battery storage development at Beacon Fen North now to called Beacon Fen Energy Park. You can read more about this decision here.

In November 2023, we published our SoCC, outlining how we plan to engage with stakeholders and local communities during our statutory consultation. You can download this document here.

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