Cornbury Solar Park

Tue 5 Apr 2011, 23:18

Setting up a Community Mortgage Foundation for Solar Power might be a more useful enabling move in the long term and "fit" with the governmental intention more closely. The issue of raising mortgages against the projected income of PV has already been successfully been done in the US.

Could a Credit Union based in the (wider geographical?) area be a body that could attract loan funds at reasonable rates and kick start the purchase of domestic PV on rooves in the area? We have enough roof for 20kW on our house under optimum conditions, 8-10x our average consumption at any one time. That is a big pay-in for a FIT scheme. Trouble is we cannot raise the money to install it. But at that rate of return would easily pay off a loan in 10 years and then have 10 years to reap the benefit taking the worst case life time of the panels of 20 years before replacement becomes necessary (a very negative assumption).

Clearly the Con artists on the Planning Committee sh*t on petitions and probably most of them are Tea Party supporters on the quiet and global warming deniers.

Tue 5 Apr 2011, 15:41

The standard Town Council terminology is "We have no objection" which was taken to mean yesterday that "We do not positively support".
I think it's unlikely that there will be an appeal because the review of the Feed-In Tariff already made delivering in time very difficult. SusCha would like to continue to discuss with Cornbury other options for renewable energy schemes. Ditchley Park attended last night's meeting to discuss the possibility of selling wood fuel to Charlbury. We could put solar PV on the roof of the new Spendlove Centre with members of the community contributing funds to the panels and receiving the FIT return (minus a bit for a community fund).

Tue 5 Apr 2011, 15:24

It's not that the petition didn't count, but that the committee interpreted the fact that there were no letters of support as an indication that people did not support the plan! Which is frankly bizarre! Thanks to Mike Breakell and Neil Owen for standing up for this plan - whatever happened to "vote blue, go green", Mr Cameron?

Tue 5 Apr 2011, 15:10

Disappointed to hear the news that the Cornbury Solar Park was turned down yesterday. Hopefully Cornbury will appeal this decision? Also surprised to hear from Liz Reason's posting that petition signers carry less influence than letter writers in the planning process.