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INCREDIBLE drone pictures reveal Britain’s biggest operational solar farm spanning 500 football pitches – but locals are not happy.
Staggering video shows the site with sprawling solar panels stretching as far as the eye can see over the countryside near Faversham, Kent.
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Cleve Hill Solar Park covers more than 900 acres with 550,000 huge solar panels on it which are more than 9ft off the ground.
The firm says the site can provide enough energy to power 102,000 homes with 373-megawatt capacity.
But this output will be split between Tesco – to power up to 144 supermarkets – and Shell – to charge evs – after a deal struck in 2024.
The power will enter the national grid as normal, but then the equivalent amount will be sucked up by the two giant firms.
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And this revelation deepened local fury around the mega project, especially those in the village of Graveney.
Tom King, 69, parish councillor for Graveney with Goodnestone for the past seven years, told The Sun: “There’s a lot of unhappiness in the community.”
Located between Faversham and Whitstable, it was given government planning permission in 2020.
And the “final phase” of the site’s construction is set to be finished by June – with the array first becoming operational last year in 2025.
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However, some locals living around the site have told The Sun said the construction has been a nightmare – but they are learning to live with it.
They lamented the loss of the countryside and asking why the solar panels couldn’t have been placed on top of buildings instead.
Planning permission was granted by the government in 2020 because the site is deemed a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP).
Locals had fought against the project – but were overulled by the government.
Cleve Hill bosses say the project has provided jobs and £500,000 funding to the area.
And they insisted they are working to preserve natural habitats around the site.
One of the local businesses impacted by the panels is The Sportsman Gastropub which has been run by owner Phil Harris, 66, for over 26 years.
Phil told The Sun: “Why does it have to be here in a field when [Tesco] have got an enormous amount of roof space everywhere.
“They could put roofs over their car parks.”
Lut Stewart, one of the villagers who campaigned against the solar park, said: “The constant thud, thud of piledriving from early in the morning and into the evening, drove us all mad.
“It was so intrusive that even when it stopped we felt we could hear it still, it had become so much of our world.”
During the construction, she claimed lorries trundled through the village daily on weekdays from 7am and 6pm and on Saturdays from 7am to 1pm.
With around 22 construction vehicles passing through the rural roads per day, the verges became destroyed and littered with mud and potholes.
Lut says residents still feel powerless and claims that local wildlife and habitats have been damaged.
The panels have been built just outside the childhood home of former borough councillor William Boggia, 97.
He said: “I learned as a boy about the value of farmland and how one should be a steward of it rather than own it.
“I’m very much for solar energy, we’ve got solar panels on the roof as it happens, but stuff in the right place,” he added.
The site is surrounded on three sides by areas of scientific interest, making locals even more worried about the park.
Whilst the villages of Graveney, Goodnestone and Hernhill were given community benefits of £500,000 by the developers of the solar park, some residents don’t believe it’s enough.
Councillor King doesn’t think the handout is equal to the size of the project.
He said: “There’s a lot of unhappiness in the community about the money we got.
“It just doesn’t equate to the amount of disruption the village.”
Christopher McGowan, 67, said: “I’ve kind of let it go now, because it is what it is.
“It’s there and there’s nothing anybody can do. It’s just a shame.”
“It’s solar panels, it’s clean energy – yes but where are you putting it? Put it on the roofs of decommissioned industrial sites.
“There’s loads of places rather than covering up the countryside.
“And it keeps happening.”
He added: “We need solar energy, clean energy but I think just stop chucking it anywhere around the countryside.”
A married couple in Graveney, who asked not to be named, used to walk a country path along the shore of the Themes where the solar park is now situated.
The husband said: “It’s a carbuncle.”
He added: “They said it could supply 100,000 homes with electricity.
“Then we found out Tesco and Shell are buying the electric from it.”
A spokesman for Cleve Hill Solar Park said: ““The UK has an ambitious target of delivering 100% clean power by 2030.
“Large-scale projects like the Cleve Hill Solar Park are critical to meeting this goal, and play an important role in providing affordable, clean, homegrown energy.
“Throughout the construction of the Cleve Hill Solar Park we have prioritised community engagement and worked closely with residents to mitigate the impacts where possible, including a construction traffic management plan.
“Cleve Hill has also established a community benefit fund to support local initiatives, administered by GrantScape.
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“Cleve Hill has worked closely with ecologists and specialist agencies to support a biodiversity program that seeks to deliver a net gain of over 65% biodiversity, including the planting of 50 hectares of new grassland, hedgerows and reedbed habitat.
“Cleve Hill has created hundreds of jobs for local workers in Kent and over its lifetime the project is expected to support over 2,500 direct and indirect jobs and generate more than £114 million in local socio-economic benefits.”
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