Proposed 20MW solar farm on what is currently farmland straddling Liverpool city region and Cheshire could provide power for 5,700 homes. Tony McDonough reports
Renewable energy specialist Innova has submitted plans for a 20MW solar farm on land in Frodsham which straddles Liverpool city region and Cheshire.
Innova Renewables Developments says the project, planned for what is currently agricultural land at Ashton Grange Farm south of Runcorn, could provide power for 5,700 homes.
It has submitted planning applications to both Chester West and Chester and Halton Councils, although the majority of the 136-acre site sits in the former.
Planning consultancy Lichfields has submitted the applications for Innova. This parcel of land is designated as part of the Green Belt but Lichfields says there are “very special circumstances’ to justify the proposed development under national planning policy.
An application for a wind farm on the same site was rejected in 2008 due to Green Belt restrictions. But Government policy on renewable installations has shifted significantly since then and particularly since the election of a Labour Government in 2024.
In submitted documents, Lichfields said: “The beneficial considerations of the proposal clearly outweigh the combined harm to the Green Belt and the limited additional residual harm identified.”
And in a covering letter it also said: “There is an urgent, and ever-increasing need to generate the UK’s energy supply from renewable sources, to provide alternatives to an over-reliance on fossil fuels, particularly from overseas supplies.”
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It added this development could make a “substantial contribution to the UK’s and Cheshire West and Chester’s carbon neutrality as part of its stated climate change emergency responses”.
Lichfields claim the farm would provide 23,155MWh of electricity annually, or 63MWh a day. Construction would generate £3.4m in GVA value, employ 60 people during the build and, once operational, would save an estimated 5,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.
Although it would be connected to the main grid, priority would be given to local use. Innova, which has more than 60 UK sites under development, is asking for five years to start the scheme due to “supply chain constraints” f