Green Councillor Kevin Pressland is a passionate campaigner for nature and the natural environment. His understanding of the threats faced by the natural world is based on expertise gained from a 40-year career in horticulture, garden design and sustainable land management:
As the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) has highlighted, solar panels should be on roofs not on the countryside. It is surely absurd that we have an allocation of over 17140 houses required by 2031 in Thanet but only a miniscule percentage of builds so far have any form of solar or air source heat pumps.
This does not strike me that the climate change and ecological disaster is being considered seriously enough by government. They’re missing a real trick. The other major parties are not highlighting or showing commitment to this either. Why? France has committed to have solar on all car park roofs nationally, producing the same amount of energy that three nuclear power plants can per annum.
The Isle of Thanet News highlighted that Thanet Earth salad producers solar roof array of 2,740 photovoltaic panels has finished construction; they have now increased their independence from energy utility suppliers. We should be surely doing the same for all new builds domestic and commercial in Thanet and across Kent?
There is likely to be an application for a solar park in Thanet in 2024 and another is in the consultation stage between Ash and Sandwich that would cover 206 acres of countryside though this is in Dover District.
Surely solar photovoltaics on houses and commercial enterprises should be the preferred option as it has a multiplicity of benefits as the recent CPRE report highlights https://www.cpre.org.uk/about-us/cpre-media/rooftops-can-provide-over-half-our-solar-energy-targets-report-shows-copy/ .
The advantages include reducing energy bills for house owners and businesses long term, little or no energy loss through voltage drop, reducing the need for so many solar parks, safeguarding valuable countryside and farmland. Solar parks like other forms of industrial energy production have to attach to the national grid system where it’s not uncommon for voltage drop losses (energy losses) on average around 6.4%.
Oil and gas taxes and energy utility taxes (a percentage of these) should pay for solar photovoltaics on all new build’s (domestic houses, commercial enterprises and house extensions on the appropriate aspect roofs) so the costs of installations on properties are not incurred by the builder, house or commercial property purchaser.
It would be great to see Thanet District Council put photovoltaics, air source heat pumps on all their housing for social rent which they are intending to build or purchase in the 4-year administration period, and that would be great news.
The UK government was voted in to surely do the best for the citizens of the country. Why has this then not been enacted by the government or does the interests of energy utility companies trump the public, countryside and farmland best interest? I am sure you and I would love to know the answer to that. Sadly, I believe the other big political parties would behave in a similar manner. I urge them to reconsider their approach.
We have to find ways to reduce carbon emissions but we have both a Climate Change and ecological crisis and we should be producing more of our own food requirement in the UK these are all intrinsically linked not separate issues. If we fail to realise this, we are in severe danger of creating even more negative implications rather than creating a more holistic approach.
There is a different approach that enshrines the concept of Systems Thinking as nature works cyclically and we need to endeavour to develop economies and societies based on this approach, it’s worth getting an understanding of this concept https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/videos/explaining-the-circular-economy-rethink-progress?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8KWA6aP5hAMVCJSDBx3lsgOxEAAYASAAEgJ6hPD_BwE,
