WILTSHIRE Council has received a complaint that Roundponds Solar Farm in Broughton Gifford has broken agreed planning conditions, after concerns were raised about a new application to build back-up generators.

Several Residents have written to the parish council and Wiltshire Council about the new plans, which could see giant diesel storage tanks built to power emergency back-up generators feeding into the National Grid.

The building to store the generators would cover a 2,400m2 area of the 30-hectare solar site installation, on land near south east of Leechpool Farm.

In an open letter to the parish council, developers said: “While derived from sustainable resources, most renewable generation is intermittent and unreliable by nature, so plants such as this new one are required to ensure the lights stay on.

“Based on predictions in any given year, realistically the units are only planned to operate a few hours each year.”

The news comes just weeks after the announcement that British Solar Renewables plan to build a new solar farm on a 40-acre piece of land to the east of the village.

If approved, it would make the area of solar farms in Broughton Gifford parish exceed the total area of the village.

Daniel Gerber, who won a High Court battle against Wiltshire Council over the Norrington Solar Farm, said: “Roundponds Energy Ltd is proposing to build what is commonly known as a 'diesel farm'. A diesel farm is a large-scale industrial development that is heavily subsidised through higher energy bills for every UK household. As solar farms are inherently unreliable, the answer to the problem of intermittency is to charge all of us more money to build a diesel-powered generating facility – to make up for the fact that a solar farm cannot consistently and efficiently produce electricity.”

A Wiltshire Council spokesman said due to the nature of the notice, much information regarding the potential breach of conditions has not yet been released and it is still investigating whether a breach has been committed.

A spokesman said: “We have not been able to determine whether the conditions are being breached. A complaint has recently been received from a member of the public and we are looking into it.”

Wiltshire Council has until December 22 to decide on whether to grant permission on the new application for the generators.