How the Quality of the Farmland has been misrepresented The Developer wants to downplay the value of the land they plan to cover with solar panels. Here’s how they’ve done it — and why the truth is far more serious. Developers Claim: They say that 55.5 hectares of the 105.8-hectare site is “Best and Most Versatile” (BMV) farmland — around 53% of the total area. But that’s misleading. The Problem: The full site includes 19.9 hectares of ancient woodland and other land that can’t be farmed — but the developer still includes this in the total when calculating the percentage. The Corrected Figure (even using EP’s own data):
Once you remove the woodland from the calculation (see following slide for details), you're left with around 85.9 hectares of actual farmland. That makes the BMV portion around 65% — not 53%! Our Expert Assessment : We commissioned a proper soil expert to review this. Their analysis found that the land is even better than the developer admits: Much of it is actually Grade 2 (very good) . Some patches are even Grade 1 — the highest classification . The developer downgraded some areas to “Grade 3b” based solely on steepness of slope — not soil quality . Once you adjust for that and remove the woodland, our expert concludes that closer to 90% of the site is high-quality, productive farmland .
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