Solar farm campaigners withdraw from legal action

Catherine Judkins said the Say No to Sunnica group had pulled out of its legal action against the solar farm decision

A group that had been campaigning against approved plans for a 2,500-acre (1,011 hectares) solar farm announced it had withdrawn its legal challenge.

The Say No to Sunnica group has campaigned against the energy farm on the Suffolk-Cambridgeshire border for a number of years.

The plans were approved by the Secretary of State in July before the group launched a challenge for a judicial review.

However chairwoman of the group, Catherine Judkins, said the fight faced potentially huge costs.

"There were multiple legal challenges in the pipeline following the decision," Ms Judkins told BBC Radio Suffolk.

"Because we are volunteer-run and don't have huge amounts of funds at our disposal, we were applying for a protection to cap our liability costs.

Ms Judkins said the group's campaign against the energy farm had not finished

"Sunnia Ltd challenged our ability to get this protection, meaning we were then facing many thousands of pounds of costs.

"Not just our own legal costs but in the event the action wasn't successful, we would be liable for their costs as well.

"We had no choice but to take a very tough decision to withdraw our own legal challenge - a very, very difficult decision."

A group of local councils in both counties launched their own challenge following the decision.

However, similarly due to fears about costs, several of the councils pulled out and the entire campaign fell through.

The Sunnica solar farm will be placed across three different sites on the border of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire

Ms Judkins said the approval of the energy farm by Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, came as a "shock".

"He actually went against the advice of his own expert examiners, who rigorously scrutinised the scheme for six months and concluded there would be many harms to the local economy, wildlife, to our heritage sites, landscapes, food production, lots of issues," she added.

Mr Miliband said at the time of the approval that solar power was "crucial to achieving net zero" and would provide "an abundant source of cleaner, cheaper energy on the mission towards 2030".

In his decision letter, Mr Miliband added that the benefits of the development outweighed the "adverse impacts", leading to his decision.

A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said it would not be appropriate to comment on a live planning case.

Despite the withdrawal of the legal action, Ms Judkins said the group would continue to campaign against Sunnica.

"It's really essential for the future of future generations, for the future of the country, that we have good solar delivered, not bad solar," she said.

"Our group has campaigned for five years, people don't just give up their personal lives to campaign against something that's good and when we know there are better ways of doing things."