Benefits

Environmental Benefits

The Dean Moor Solar Farm will provide the opportunity to keep the Site free from intensive farming practices and chemicals, allowing species to thrive and soil quality to improve. A biodiversity net- gain will be achieved by new and improved boundary planting, setting aside ecological enhancement areas, and dedicated features to improve the area as wildlife habitat. These measures will include:

  • Cultivating wildflower meadow for pollinators.

  • Improving grazing meadows and expanding acid grasslands.

  • New native species hedgerows and enhancements to existing features to make them more species-rich.

  • Installing bird, bat, invertebrate boxes, and hibernacula.

  • Protecting watercourses, planting waterside vegetation.

  • Introducing new native trees and improving existing areas of woodland

  • Managing grassland with low-intensity sheep grazing.

Whilst not a requirement for NSIP projects such as the Dean Moor Solar Farm, we anticipate that these measures will result in a biodiversity net gain greater than the Government’s 10% overall requirement across the Site.

Community Benefits

FVS Dean Moor Ltd is dedicated to creating lasting positive effects for the local area. We are working with community and local groups to shape a package of benefits. We are committing to the following package:

1. Community funding: We will provide financial support for local projects for every year that the solar farm is in operation.

2. On-site benefits: We are proposing to offer local benefits through the project’s design, like new public paths for better connectivity.

We are in active dialogue with a range of local organisations to ascertain the best way to help the community through our project. This is an area where we are especially keen on feedback to help formalise the different types of funding and community benefit governance in advance of the DCO application submission at the end of this year.

Please do not hesitate to get in contact with the project team should you wish to be considered as part of this process.