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Councillors in neighbouring Rhondda Cynon Taf are looking into the impact of a proposed solar farm on the slopes of Eglwysilan Mountain.

The application for the solar farm at Glyntaff Farm on Bryntail Road, Glyntaff, is labelled as a development of national significance – meaning it will be decided by a planning inspector.

However, it will go before RCT’s planning committee on Thursday, September 4, for the local impact report to be considered which, if approved, will be submitted to Planning and Environment Decisions Wales (PEDW).

The proposed wind farm is separate to the planned Cwm Ifor Solar Farm above Penyrheol and Abertridwr.

Renantis UK Limited is seeking full planning permission for the installation, operation, and subsequent decommissioning of the solar farm, which would have a capacity of 39.9mw (MegaWatts).

As the installed generating capacity of the proposed development would exceed 10mw, it qualifies as a development of national significance (DNS) and the application for planning permission is therefore to be decided by Welsh ministers rather than RCT Council – with the process administered by PEDW.

But it is a formal requirement of the DNS process that any relevant council must submit a local impact report to PEDW to help the appointed inspector in their consideration of the proposals.

The development would be on the upper slopes of Mynydd Eglwysilan, 800-metres to the east of Pontypridd town centre, around 300-metres to the north of Rhydyfelin, and around 310-metres to the northeast of Glyntaff.

It would include transformers, fencing, storage containers, a substation, monitoring houses, construction compound, and cable trenches.

The planning report says approximately 2.15% of the 70.9 hectare site would be taken over by the proposed development and approximately 97.75% would be kept for “landscape and biodiversity enhancement”.

It would generate and export energy to the grid for a period of up to 35 years, after which it would be decommissioned and the land restored back to its current use and condition.

Construction will likely take between 12 and 18 months, the report says.

The planning report concludes: “The proposed development will have a negative impact in landscape visual terms; however, it is considered that these impacts could be reduced with the application of appropriate mitigation (i.e. screening).

“Whilst information has been submitted which suggests that the impacts of the proposed development on ecological interests and nature conservation can, with appropriate mitigation, achieve a neutral impact, the council’s ecologist considers that the surveys undertaken are insufficient – and that the biodiversity net gain report takes a blanket approach to biodiversity mitigation and enhancement, with those proposed being inappropriate to the site and wider RCT context.

“As it currently stands the development would have a negative impact in this regard and the issue needs further consideration.

“In all other key respects, such as residential amenity and highway safety, it is considered appropriate mitigation can be implemented that would ensure there is no more than a neutral impact.”

The report says that it is clear from the national policy documents that there is a strong presumption in favour of such projects, to the point where adverse impacts have to be particularly severe for a refusal of consent to be justified.

It says that the adverse impacts in this case, which will likely be the key determining factors for the PEDW inspectorate, are considered to be mostly related to visual impact and ecology.