Plans for Shropshire battery bank on green-belt site approved

Beamish Lane in Albrighton is the site of a planned battery bank

Plans to build a battery bank on a stretch of green-belt land in Shropshire have been approved.

Green energy firm Hydrock applied to create a seven-megawatt battery storage system near an existing sub-station on Beamish Lane in Albrighton.

It would be able to store electricity for 1,750 homes, the company said.

Shropshire Council expressed strong support for the proposal and said it would help "bridge the gap" towards energy self-sufficiency for the county.

Battery energy storage systems are designed to store energy generated by renewable sources and release it at periods of high demand.

A previous proposal for the same site was withdrawn in April 2023, but then re-submitted after advice from Shropshire Council's planning officers.

The revised scheme was amended to reduce the footprint of the site and provide additional landscaping to screen the development.

Hydrock said in a supporting statement: "Battery storage technologies are essential to speeding up the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy.

"Battery storage systems will play an increasingly pivotal role between green energy supplies and responding to electricity demands."

The scheme attracted support from Albrighton Parish Council, and county councillor Nigel Lumby said it had "massive potential", particularly given a recently approved solar-farm was set to be built nearby.

Approving the decision, Shropshire Council planners said the public benefits were the over-riding factor, despite concerns over developing the green-belt.

The council's decision notice said: "The proposed development would reduce green-belt openness locally which would be limited by the presence of nearby similar development and mitigated to a degree through the proposed landscaping scheme.

"However, in this case the very special circumstances needed to justify the development exist in that the public benefits of the proposal on this relatively compact 0.7 hectare area of land are of a magnitude that would outweigh the harm to the green-belt."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.