THE developers behind a huge solar farm proposed for St Asaph will continue to manage feedback from the public during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Solarcentury is behind the project, set to be built on land to the North East of the city. The solar energy farm will cover a massive 117 hectares and will generate nearly 60 gigawatt hours of electricity per year – enough to power over 20,000 homes.

As a result of the Coronavirus, Solarcentury postponed its information days at Bodelwyddan Community Centre and at St Asaph Cricket Club.

Material that was going to be presented has been uploaded to the company’s project website www.solarcentury.com/elwy. This includes copies of the information boards outlining the scheme and a feedback form which residents and businesses can complete online.

Chris Banks, UK business development manager at Solarcentury said: “Solarcentury made this difficult decision because of the changing situation with Coronavirus. Bringing lots of people together in one place did not seem the sensible thing to do especially when we can make information available by other means. Since March 11 the Government has changed its advice significantly on Coronavirus so, like many companies, we are no longer able to meet people face to face but are able to communicate by email, by telephone and online.

“We are grateful to the St Asaph and Bodelwyddan communities for their understanding in our decision to postpone these events and look forward to sharing more information with them at a later date.

"We are not submitting the planning application for Elwy Solar Energy Farm until later this year – our current plan is for late summer 2020 – so there is still plenty of time for us to collate feedback and views”.

Solarcentury hope to arrange a second set of public information days later in the summer.

For the immediate future, residents and businesses give feedback on the outline plans by visiting www.solarcentury.com/elwy or emailing elwysolar@solarcentury.com or can telephone 0207 549 1299 to speak to a member of the project team.

An online survey is running at www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/elwysolar

Solarcentury is continuing with the preparatory work associated with the project, including the landscape and ecological assessments, grid connection work, and fine tuning the design.

It has also submitted the administrative ‘notice to submit’ document to the Planning Inspectorate, which means Solarcentury now have 12 months within which to submit the formal planning application.

Mr Banks added: "Solarcentury believes that solar energy farms like Elwy, are the clean, green key to fighting climate chaos. Generating electricity from solar reduces dependence on fossil fuels, gives us a simple low risk source of home-grown energy with predictable annual performance, and allows large amounts of clean energy to be delivered to the national grid.

"There are local benefits too. Subject to planning approval, Elwy Solar has the potential to create local jobs and numerous supply contracts during the construction, operation and maintenance phase of the build, and contribute business rates to the local council. In addition the variety of dry and wet and shaded and sunny areas on a solar energy farm, once properly planted and managed, can support a wide variety of wildlife, including birds, bats and bumblebees; making this a great opportunity for wildlife locally."

Paper copies of the information on the website can be made available for anyone without internet access by calling 0207 549 1299.