By Jamie Waller, Local Democracy Reporter
A planning appeal for a battery storage facility around the size of 19 football pitches which was previously rejected will be heard next week.
The 10-acre Staythorpe Battery Energy Storage System near Newark was turned down by councillors in July 2023 due to the size and visual impact.
The village’s ward councillor says there is still opposition to the plans.
Developer Ecap Staythorpe has appealed the decision, and an extraordinary planning meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 9 for the council to justify its decision to the Planning Inspectorate.
The meeting will be held behind closed doors to allow the council to lay out its case in private.
Councillor Keith Melton (Lid Dem), who lives in Staythorpe, said: “There was quite a degree of opposition when it was originally proposed. People weren’t happy with the size of it, or the fact that so much agricultural land would be lost.
“This is a very large proposal in the centre of the village. It doesn’t fit in well with the rural nature of the village.
“The meeting will be exempt so that the council can make the arguments that it needs to without the applicant becoming aware of those – a form of political privacy, rather than commercial privacy.
“It’s not a way of keeping the public from the discussions.”
The development, which is around 19 football pitches in size, would be built on land south of Staythorpe Road, including 268 batteries and the necessary infrastructure to connect to the grid.
The planning application says the storage facility could power around 150,000 households for two hours each time it discharges its full capacity.
If the previous decision is overturned, the construction will begin early next year with an estimated completion date in summer 2026.
The plan was rejected due to the “harmful visual and amenity impact” due to its size and design,
However, the developer says that the benefits would outweigh the “limited and localised effects”.
The storage facility would provide ‘critical grid balancing services’ which would help ensure the security of power supply and reduce outages.
The application adds that “rapid progress towards net zero requires upgrades to the connecting network infrastructure needed to support it”.
