THE Bathurst community has every right to ask serious questions about a massive solar farm being planned for the outskirts of the city.
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There have been high emotions on both sides of the argument ever since Photon Energy’s plans to install almost 400,000 solar panels on grazing land at Brewongle were revealed in the Western Advocate last month.
Feedback to this newspaper would suggest the majority of Brewongle residents do not want the solar farm built near their homes, and that’s understandable.
Opponents say they are not opposed to the concept of solar farms but believe there are far more suitable sites to be found near Bathurst, particularly in rough country north of the city.
They say, reasonably, that Brewongle is a prime farming area and the land should be preserved for food production.
But residents opposed to the solar farm face two major obstacles.
The first is that the Department of Planning and Environment, not Bathurst Regional Council, will be the consent authority in this matter and bureaucrats in Sydney are less likely to be swayed by their arguments than elected representatives living within the same community.
Second, the Brewongle residents opposed to the solar farm need to fight the NIMBY factor – the perception their main objection is “not in my backyard”.
There can be no argument that a 200 hectare solar farm will significantly impact on the amenity of the area, but its ugliness is unlikely to be given much consideration when the final decision is made.
What might play on the decision makers’ minds, though, is the evidence of agronomist Keiran Knight who says the solar panels would block UV light in the area and disrupt soil microbiology.
As a community we have an obligation to protect good farming land for future generations so attempting to solve one problem (the question of sustainable power supply) by creating another (the degradation of prime farming land) should carry real weight.
Photon Energy says the Brewongle site was chosen as the most suitable for its solar farm but it has not properly explained the reasons behind that decision, nor revealed what other sites – if any – it considered.
The community seems united in its support for solar power, but why rush a decision on location and risk making a mistake we’ll be stuck with for decades to come?
