Riddled with drainage ditches, canals, hedgerows and fertile fields, while being bordered on one side by the vast tidal mudflats and wetlands at the edge of the Severn, the Gwent Levels is a landscape unlike others. It’s famed for its rare vegetation, water vole, otters and birdlife. Walkers love its tranquility and remoteness.
Yet there are a series of proposals in various stages of the planning process that could transform this treasured, environmentally-important landscape into an industrial capital of a different kind – a mecca for solar power. It is the combination of sunlight and water that created the Gwent Levels and developers now want to harness that sunlight for other means.
There are six applications for new solar farms in the area, which borders Cardiff to the west and Chepstow to the east. They would cover a combined 1,679 acres of land to add to the 260 acres already covered by the one solar farm already built in the area south of Llanwern. One would be the largest solar farm in the UK, generating 400MW of energy from 250,000 panels covering around 2.5 square kilometers of land.
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In total, the seven solar farms either built or planned would create nearly 2,000 acres or 7.8 square kilometers of black panels soaking up the sunshine that today fosters the growth of grasses, flowers, trees and other vegetation, providing the bedrock of the ecology of the area. This is an area recognised by the Welsh Government as an ancient landscape and home to several sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs).
It is attractive to solar developers because of the ease of access to the national grid and the flat nature of the site, close to the M4 motorway. The map below shows where they would all go:
Simon Brook, chair of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales and who lives on the edge of the Levels, said: “It’s a very difficult landscape to protect because the Levels is a flat landscape which has already been damaged. When you look at a place like Bishton which is literally going to be surrounded, surely these people should get free electricity.
“To me the main issue here is the protection of an historic landscape and trying to preserve that landscape in its entirety. It’s not just about preserving the SSSIs and letting the rest go. If you start letting developers pick at bits of the Levels I think that’s the start of the end for the Levels as a respected landscape. I think once we as human beings start to give into this and lose interest in the landscape then we end up losing the landscape altogether.
“There are other ways of reaching net zero and we can. The capacity for rooftop solar in Newport is about 300 megawatts which is huge. I do feel it’s almost a cultural issue. If you go to France or Germany you see solar on car parks, motorways. You don’t see many innovative ways of developing solar energy in the UK.”
Areas marked for the solar farms are within a few miles of each other. Submitted applications include Wentlooge Renewable Energy Hub near St Brides which is funded by Next Energy Capital, and Rushwall Solar Park near Redwick funded by BSR Energy. Both of the applications were blocked by the Welsh Government over concerns for the landscape but those decisions were quashed following judicial reviews and applications are expected to be redetermined by Welsh planning inspectorate Planning and Environment Decisions Wales (PEDW).
A heron on the Gwent Levels -Credit:John Myers
The Craig y Perthi solar farm could be positioned to the east and west of the village of Bishton, Newport -Credit:John Myers
The Craig y Perthi Solar Farm, funded by RWE Renewables, which would surround the village of Bishton on the Levels’ boundary, has just gone through a consultation phase after an application was submitted to the Welsh Government.
Another solar farm is planned at Atlantic Eco Park in Wentloog in Cardiff on the edge of the Levels which is funded by Dauson Environmental Group, where the planning application is at pre-submission stage and a decision is not expected until 2026. Net Zero Magor at Budweiser’s Magor site has been publicly backed by the Welsh Government and pre-submission documents were submitted in 2022. Budweiser has confirmed the project is “progressing”.
All the other five applications are dwarfed by what would be the UK’s largest solar farm if it goes ahead. Next Energy wants to install 400MW of solar panels south of Llanwern. This is such a large project it is beyond the Welsh Government’s powers and an application would be determined by the UK Government. It is at the pre-application stage in discussions with Whitehall officials. Read more about this project here.
The serene Landscape of the Gwent Levels -Credit:John Myers
Six thousand people have signed Gwent Wildlife Trust’s (GWT) petition to stop significant developments on the Levels. GWT has called for a temporary moratorium on major developments across the Levels while a special planning policy is developed.
While applications are made on the basis that Wales needs to move quickly on renewable energy sources to meet climate targets, Mike Webb of GWT has spoken of the need to react to the climate emergency while protecting Wales’ ecology. “No-one is more conscious than us at GWT of the need to combat climate change. But we cannot sacrifice our nationally important wildlife in an uncoordinated dash for solar power stations everywhere and anywhere throughout Wales,” he said.
Campaigners say they are not against clean energy quickly but it needs to be situated in appropriate areas -Credit:John Myers
Huge areas of land on the Gwent Levels could soon be overwhelmed by solar panels in the race for clean energy -Credit:John Myers
Developers have an obligation to offer community investment as part of plans for developments. But people who will be living beside the proposed solar panels have said they fear they won’t materially benefit from them at all. While developers deny this, at the only solar farm on the Levels so far – Llanwern – all of the energy the solar panels are producing there is going to Anglian Water, which you can read about here.
John Griffiths, MS for Newport East and who chairs the Gwent Levels working group in the Senedd, has submitted a statement of opinion to the Senedd stating that the Senedd “recognises the environmental importance of the Gwent Levels to Wales with its multiple SSSIs and unique biodiversity”. He said the Senedd “expresses deep concern at the Levels coming under increasing pressure from multiple solar farm applications with the risk of detrimentally changing the nature of the Levels”.
He added: “The Gwent Levels is one of Newport and Wales’ most important assets. The unique biodiversity, wildlife and visual landscape which it affords the city and the wider area is priceless – and we must do all we can to protect it from harm and irreversible change. There is a real risk that if one of these large scale solar farms is given the go ahead, it will open the door for other similar developments, which would risk detrimentally changing the nature of the Levels and for the communities who live there.”
Peredur Owen Griffiths MS for South Wales East said: “I believe the Welsh Government should make changes to planning policy to introduce a more coherent and uniform criteria for reaching final decisions on energy developments which would include ensuring genuine community benefits and placing restrictions on large-scale developments on good quality agricultural land.”
Planning Secretary Rebecca Evans said the Welsh Government takes into consideration “the opportunities and the impacts proposed by solar developments”. She said ambition to meet climate targets “doesn’t mean we are going to abandon policies for the protection of our most valuable environments”.
A spokesperson for RWE said: “The designs for the Craig Y Perthi Solar Farm have been developed by wildlife conservationist and trained ecologist Robin Johnson, and ‘seek to place a special focus on improving local biodiversity and opportunities for wildlife within the Gwent Levels’. Coming from a conservation background, Robin is also one of the project managers for the scheme, representing RWE Renewables UK, an energy generator would both build and operate the site.”
Mr Johnson said: “The farm will support a diverse range of habitats and species once up and running. There will be over 129 acres of new wildflower meadow creation, enhanced with specific food plants for invertebrates that live within the Levels, including the shrill carder bee (which is under threat due to loss of habitat as a result of intensive agriculture and pressures from biocide use), and over 11.3km of new native hedgerow and tree planting, further improving interconnectivity of habitats on-site.
“The narrative that the proposed solar farm would harm wildlife in the Levels is untrue. One of the greatest threats to the wildlife in the Gwent levels is from the runoff of chemical inputs used in agriculture (fertilisers and biocides) and the creation of biodiversity poor monocultures, not solar farms that create vast undisturbed and enhanced habitats.
“Solar farms, when done right, represent a fantastic opportunity to create vast new, undisturbed and preserved habitats, free from human influence. Wildlife conservation is very important to me, and I’m absolutely delighted with what we would be able to achieve with this site.”
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