PROTESTS are growing over the widespread plans for new solar farms and wind turbines in South East Cornwall.

A meeting held this week heard that the spread of alternative energy developments has prompted 'disempowerment and dissatisfaction' with Cornwall Council planning processes.

Around 60 residents gathered in Trewidland Village Hall on Wednesday for the meeting at which the Trewidland Community Energy Group (TCEG), a pressure group, presented a display of information. This related to recent planning applications for solar farms at Pensipple and Lowertown Farm, Trewidland – where a wind turbine is also planned – and to the cluster of similar applications in the wider Liskeard, Looe and St Germans area.

The meeting began with discussion of a number of issues including the provisional approval of the solar scheme at Pensipple, the application for a wind turbine and solar farm at Lowertown Farm, and about 30 other applications in the Trewidland, Duloe, Menheniot, Morval, St Germans and St Cleer areas.

Those present expressed a strong sense of disempowerment and dissatisfaction with the planning process – especially the difficulty of obtaining information on which applications have been made and where.

The meeting heard that local posting of notices about specific applications does not cater for the developments' capacity to affect people over a much wider area.

It was pointed out that wind turbines and solar farms do not just affect single communities, but are visible over wide areas – and that there was an urgent need to develop an inter-parish view of the whole planning process.

The pressure group has already formed links with other groups in Morval and Duloe, and has sent information to St Keyne and St Cleer. It has also raised this issue with the Liskeard and Looe Community Network, a forum for councillors.

As a result of the meeting on Wednesday, it was decided that the possibility of an appeal against the approval of the Pensipple solar farm should be investigated and that Cornwall Council should be lobbied as to why such applications are being dealt with on a piecemeal basis.

A petition is to be set up to request that the council should not consider any further applications until they can all be evaluated as part of a cluster.