BROUGHTON Gifford residents fear that should the solar farm be forced to be dismantled they will have to endure traffic chaos and churned up mud a second time.

Last year many felt unable to leave their homes after lorries delivering equipment to the site destroyed roads and made them impassable while the solar farm was being built.

The site only opened in June last year at a cost of £10.5million at the 22-hectare site.

Rodney Mortimer, farmer at Leechpool Farm, Norrington Lane, said: “My concern is will we have the same problems taking it down as we did putting it up?

“They still haven’t repaired the roads and put them back to how they were before and in my opinion I don’t mind whether it stays or goes.

“It just seems that no matter what lots of tax payer’s money will be used as the owners could well sue the council and it will be us who foot the bill.

“But it was just atrocious last time as there were six inches of mud and it caused traffic chaos.”

Jack Churchill, spokesman for campaign group Wiltshire Protect, believes Wiltshire Council should have done more before approving the planning.

He said: “It’s obviously a hell of a cock up by Wiltshire Council and it shows that with a planning permission they need to take care and need to consult with all the relevant parties, and a wider group of people.

“My feeling has been that this is typical treatment from Wiltshire Council who liken this sort of thing to an extension to a house when it’s not, it’s in fact a massive industrial construction.

“Wiltshire Council get paid for every planning application they receive so they have the money to put in the effort and even go beyond to make sure things like this don’t happen.

“I think it’s a wake-up call for other councils that they need to take more care with planning permissions.

“I’m very impressed with Dan Gerber, very few people would have gone out of their way and challenged this as much as he has so I’ve a lot of respect for him.”