Our village defibrillator has been relocated from the Village Hall into the Telephone Box on Fair Green.
Its position now should be more visible and accessible for potential users. We still need to change the signs on the phone box (from telephone to defibrillator) and complete a few outstanding phone box maintenance issues, but the defibrillator itself is functioning and ready to use.
On 1 February nine villagers joined a team from Cambridge Conservation Volunteers to lay part of the hedge that runs along the southern edge of the 24 Acres.
The hedge had been planted by the village over decade ago and in recent years has become unruly. Rather than flail it into shape, the PC decided that we should lay it. The hedge will become neater and more robust and a better haven for wildlife as a result. The Conservation Volunteers led the hedging work, passing on the traditional skills involved to residents. We plan to use the skills acquired to manage this and other hedges in the future.
We have now laid 90 of the 150 metres of this particular hedge and plan to complete the task in early 2027. If anybody wants to have a go at hedge-laying then, let me know.
Nick Acklam
n.acklam@reachparishcouncil.org
East Cambridgeshire District Council has launched a grant scheme for Community Groups. The scheme will pay up to £1,000 for projects designed to improve the quality of life for residents. Information about the grant including eligibility criteria and application guidance can be found on the council’s website https://eastcambs.gov.uk/community-safety-and-wellbeing/grants-and-community-projects/community-fund
Applications must be in by 31 December.
Every year we give community groups the opportunity to apply for grants of up to £1,000.
The money can be spent on new or existing projects designed to improve the quality of life for residents in East Cambridgeshire.
To be successful you must show evidence of how the project:
This grant scheme cannot give capital funding for buildings but can be used to buy equipment for the project. For help with capital projects please see our Facilities Improvement Grant.
To be considered for a grant applicants must:
If your organisation does not have a written constitution, mission statement or relevant protection policies, please contact Voluntary Community Action East Cambs (VCAEC) or email info@vcaec.org.uk for advice in meeting these requirements.
Up to 75% of the project costs can be sought, with a minimum grant of £250 and a maximum grant of £1,000 payable.
We need you to demonstrate you have 25% of the total project cost as cash or in-kind match funding. Only one grant per group or organisation may be awarded in any financial year (April to March).
For further information contact 01353 665555.
KINGSWAY SOLAR
REACH PARISH COUNCIL’S SUBMISSION TO THE STATUTORY CONSULTATION PROCESS
Reach Parish Council has studied your preliminary environmental impact report (PEIR) and listened to your online presentation today. Our focus is, of course, on the proposed 440kV pylon route through our parish. We understand that the proposed route is iterative and stand by to assist in improving and refining your application to a level that would be acceptable to local residents.
As it stands, we object to your proposal to connect to the national grid by overhead head line (OHL) and, in particular, to the proposed route of the OHL through our parish. We consider that the proposed route creates an unreasonable and unnecessary landscape and visual impact to the east of our village.
Our objections
Reach’s Neighbourhood Plan of 2024 and the professional landscape appraisal that underpins it demonstrate that the great majority of Reach residents cherish open vistas from the village including those to the east of the village directly affected by the proposed pylon route. The Neighbourhood Plan seeks to protect these in policies RCH6 and RCH10 (https://eastcambs.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2024-10/REACH Neighbourhood Plan Made Version February 2024.pdf). A copy of the underlying landscape appraisal, where sections 4.4 Important Views and 4.7 Rural Lanes and Open Gaps are germane to our objection, is attached to this letter.
You acknowledge, in table 7.13 in Vol 2, Chapter 7 of the PEIR, that the northern part of the Grid Connection Corridor will face significant cumulative effects on some visual receptors including residents, PRoW and road users. However, we consider that the view points you have used in your LVIA are partial and insufficient to gauge the full scale of the adverse impact. Additional viewpoints along Burwell Road, public rights of way between Reach and Burwell and from the Devil’s Dyke would far better inform judgements on the cumulative effect of development.
Furthermore some existing viewpoints are orientated in one direction only and fail to take account of the view looking towards the majority of the proposed infrastructure. This should be reviewed. Other viewpoints such as Vp 21 illustrate the extent to which the existing 400Kv OHL utilises landform to mitigate its scale and effect, something which would not be possible with your proposed route.
We also believe that the proposed route has a significant adverse visual effect on the Devil’s Dyke scheduled monument, the northern end of which lies in our parish. The proposed route would greatly damage the sense of place at one of the most important Anglo-Saxon earthworks in the UK. At the northern end of the Dyke, the pylons would run parallel to the Dyke for about 2.5 km and would sometimes encroach within 150 metres of it. As such, the pylons would be a constant visual intrusion to visitors to the Dyke for which the main mode of access is by footpath along the top of the Dyke. We see no evidence in your PEIR that you have undertaken a Heritage Impact Assessment commensurate with the importance of the scheduled monument. Accordingly the mitigations you propose are insufficient. We know that our concerns are shared by our colleagues in the parish of Swaffham Prior.
Should your application proceed to public examination in its current form we shall submit a further professional landscape assessment in support of our above objections. However, we consider that there are alternative means of connection open to you that might allay the majority of local concerns.
Our alternative proposals
We believe that burial is technically feasible, financially viable and valid in planning policy terms as a mitigation of the cumulative effects of wirescape in the vicinity of the Burwell substations. We note that Sunnica, a solar scheme of similar scale and based a similar distance from national grid connection at Burwell was willing and able to bury its connection. Furthermore, very recently Cambridgeshire County Council buried an electrical supply from Burwell to the Community Heating Scheme at Swaffham Prior in the same area as your proposed pylon route. The decision was clearly to protect the Devils Dyke and surrounding countryside.
We note in para 4.3.45 of the PEIR that you identify the most notable constraint to an underground connection as being within a section of the corridor where two 33kV OHL lines and three high pressure gas pipelines are located. In the absence of any detail on the location of these constraints or their technical impact on burying your connection it is impossible for us to assess this assertion.
On the basis of the PEIR we judge that there may well be above ground connection options that though likely less satisfactory to local residents would be better than your current proposal.
We note in paragraphs 4.3.11, 4.3.12 and 4.3.18 of your PEIR that you had considered a connection using the existing Pelham to Burwell 400 kV OHL where you had identified capacity. We also note in paragraph 4.3.27 that you had also considered but rejected an OHL parallel route.
Next steps
At this stage we have four requests which will assist our further engagement with you. Please supply:
– evidence to demonstrate your compliance with the Holford Rules specifically rules 1,2,4,6 and 7 in respect of the proposed route
– evidence that you currently meet readiness criteria of the National Grid’s Gate 2 process, specifically that you have secured the land rights for the entirety of the pylon route
– a detailed summary of your engagement with National Grid including justification for the rejection of use of the existing Pelham to Burwell OHL and evidence for rejecting a route parallel to the existing Pelham to Burwell 400 kV OHL
– the location of the two 33kV OHL lines and three high pressure gas pipelines which you assess to constrain alternative connection and a summary of the technical issues that make these constraints insurmountable or technically unfeasible.
Please acknowledge receipt of this letter.
Yours sincerely,
N J Acklam
Nick Acklam
Reach Parish Council
KINGSWAY SOLAR FARM UPDATE
Kingsway Solar formally applied for approval to build a solar farm to the south of Reach on 17 September. As a nationally significant infrastructure project, the application will be overseen by the Planning Inspectorate. This note provides background to the application, outlines the likely implications for Reach should it be approved and offers suggestions about what you can do in response to the application.
Background
Kingsway Solar wants to install solar panels and large storage batteries on 1,500 hectares (3,706 acres) of farmland near Balsham, West Wratting, Weston Colville, Willingham Green, Carlton, Brinkley and Six Mile Bottom and to connect it to the national grid at a new substation at Burwell using overhead cable and pylons. The proposed connection route runs close to Reach.
The solar panel development will cover an area larger than Heathrow Airport and the 14 km cable route will use pylons up to 65 metres tall.
In 2024 the Parish Council informed Kingsway that it was unhappy with the principle of the development and with the approach that Kingsway proposed to take in assessing the environmental impact of the scheme. Our views went unheeded. We now plan to object to the development based on the strong opposition to it expressed by residents at a Parish Council meeting of 5 August and in light of more detailed, but far from definitive, information about Kingsway’s plans.
How will the proposed development affect Reach?
The overhead pylon route and the new substation will fundamentally change the character of the countryside between Reach and Burwell.
In its Preliminary Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) Kingsway has provided an indicative route for the overhead cable and pylon route. With thanks to Steve Boreham, this has now been added to the map of cumulative energy developments between Reach and Burwell attached to this article. Whilst the route is indicative and may be changed, it is not good news for the village. The proposed route will run much closer to the centre of Reach than the existing overhead cable route that cuts across Burwell Road. Many residents of Burwell Road will have the views from their homes industrialised should the connection be approved. Users of the 24 Acres will also find the overhead cable very intrusive. Furthermore, the pylons will run close to the Devil’s Dyke for several hundred metres and thus will be very visible from the path on top of the Dyke and from Swaffham Road. The proposed overhead cable would complete a ‘curtain’ of overhead cables around the north and east of Reach.
Kingsway’s proposal is the tenth energy scheme on land between Reach and Burwell. Its approval is dependent on an eleventh, the construction by National Grid of a new substation termed ‘Burwell South’. This will be of a similar size and visual impact to the existing substation at Weirs Drove. National Grid has not yet confirmed its location (even to Kingsway) but the likely site is several hundred metres closer to Reach. It seems almost certain that the new sub station will have capacity to take further feeds from local green energy schemes, opening up the prospect of more arable fields around the village going over to solar panels and battery storage compounds and more overhead cables bringing in energy from solar farms further afield.
What can we do?
The PC has joined the alliance of Parish Councils opposing Kingsway to share costs and to strengthen our voice. With funding support from local residents, the PC has commissioned a preliminary assessment of the impact of the proposed pylon route on the landscape around the village. We will publish the assessment when we have it and will be using it to respond to Kingsway’s PEIR. We have to respond by 29 October and would welcome your views beforehand. However, there is nothing to stop you expressing your own views direct to Kingsway http://www.kingswaysolarfarm.co.uk. Indeed we would encourage as many of you as possible to do so as this will demonstrate the strength of opposition to the application to Kingsway and the Planning Inspectorate. We would encourage you not to use Kingsway’s template but instead to follow the guidance of the Kingsway Solar Community Action (KSCA) group
KCSA is running a number of letter writing workshops and the PC is exploring if one can be organised close to Reach. We will keep you posted.
The PC is also pressing central and local government to revise planning frameworks and guidelines to take far more account of cumulative impact of energy developments on landscapes and communities.
Nick Acklam
n.acklam@reachparishcouncil.org
SCRUB CLEARING DEVIL’S DYKE
SATURDAY 4 OCTOBER
Reach Parish Council is organising a scrub clearing afternoon in the field between the play ground and the Devil’s Dyke at 1300 on Saturday 4 October. Villagers are welcome to participate.
The scrub clearance supports the PC’s Nature Recovery Plan, by enhancing biodiversity on the margins of the Devil’s Dyke Site of Special Scientific Interest. Removal of the scrub will allow flowers of chalk grassland such as scabious, cowslip and orchids to establish and prosper.
Anyone interested in participating should contact Nick Acklam beforehand. As we will be removing thorny growth, those involved should wear stout footwear and bring gardening gloves or gauntlets, rakes and loppers.
Nick Acklam
n.acklam@reachparishcouncil.org
REACH PC MAIN POINTS OF CONCERN ABOUT THE GRENERGY SCHEME
The PC’s main concerns about Grenergy’s proposed battery storage are:
25/00639/FUM
Objection Letter from the Reach Parish Council to the East Cambridgeshire District Council Planning Team.
If you would like to make your own objection to this planning application the easiest way is to email your objections to plservices@eastcambs.gov.uk – you will need to include the planning reference number (25/00639/FUM), your name and full address with any comments, or they cannot be accepted.
Or you can comment online – click on the link and you’ll see “Make a Comment” at the bottom of the web page but you’ll either need to login first, of if you haven’t already registered with them, you need to do that first by clicking on “Register here”. This is also the page to learn more about what is planned – just click on “Documents” (you don’t need to have registered to do this).
Or by writing, you can send comments by post to: Planning, East Cambridgeshire District Council, The Grange, Nutholt Lane, Ely, Cambs, CB7 4EE. Again, you will need to include the planning reference number (25/00639/FUM), your name and full address with any comments, or they cannot be accepted.
Here are the latest updates on Energy Schemes planned or to be proposed around Reach. (larger map uploaded)
More information is being uploaded.
On 2 February 2025 seven villagers joined a team of ten from Cambridge Conservation Volunteers (CCV) to lay part of the hedge on the southern boundary of the 24 Acres. The hedge sits on land leased by the Parish Council (PC) from the National Trust. The hedge laying was organised by the PC.
The hedge, formed of native species, mainly hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple, dogwood and dog rose, was planted by villagers about a decade ago. It has developed well, so much so that it was beginning to intrude on the cricket pitch and the neighbouring byway. It could have been flailed or mechanically cut back but the PC opted for a more traditional approach because it will create a denser and more biodiverse hedge that is better to look at.
The day in question was dry and bright and the team achieved its target of laying 50 metres of hedge, about a third of its total length. The CCV experts had noted beforehand that the hedge was in ideal condition for laying and were pleased with the results, as were we.
The villagers involved in the task were able to learn how to use a billhook and bow saw to manipulate the shrubs of the hedge into place without killing them. This will stand us in good stead when we come to lay the remainder of the hedge and then to maintain it. On this occasion we used imported hazel stakes and willow binders to give the hedge a robust structure but in the future we hope to use hazel coppiced from Reach Wood.
We will be laying the remainder of the 24 Acres hedge in 2026 and 2027 and will need to re-lay the hedge in a decade’s time. So, whilst the nature of hedge laying limits the number of people that can be actively involved on any one task, the PC would welcome hearing from other villagers who would like to learn a new skill and want to have a go.
Nick Acklam
