Sun likely to shine favourably on plan to build solar farm following firm's assurance on fate of Skylarks

                                             

The Skylark - a declining farmland bird that has inspired many poet with its long liquid song usually uttered high above ground  

ALTHOUGH it says it still has "significant concerns" about a proposed solar farm being built on a field outside a Grimsby-area village, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust has withdrawn its initial objection.

The  trust's  change of tack follows an assurance by the developer that an adjacent 16.5-hectare field will be managed for the benefit of farmland birds such as Skylarks that will be displaced from the application site - a medium-grade  arable crops field off Riby Road in Stallingborough.

When a bird survey was carried out of the field two summers ago, it revealed the presence of 58 species, including up to 20 Skylark territories.

Also recorded were other increasingly scarce farmland species such as: 

* Grey Partridge

* Cuckoo

* Lesser Whitethroat

* Yellow Wagtail

* Yellowhammer

* Stonechat  

* Quail 

* Grasshopper Warbler.

No Barn Owls were sighted during the survey, but there are two owl nest boxes within the site, and fresh owl-regurgitated pellets were found during an internal inspection of a small barn.

The applicants for the Stallingborough Energy Project are London-based Island Green Power which is a wholly-owned  subsidiary of the multinational Macquarie Asset Management company,

Island Green Power says it will mitigate for the loss of the Skylark field both by creating new habitat for this species on the  neighbouring  field and by installing  60-plus nestboxes, including four for Barn Owls.

At a planning meeting in Grimsby Town Hall next Wednesday April 22, North East Lincolnshire Council case officer Richard Limmer will recommend members to approve the application.

The Stallingborough field that has been earmarked for a solar farm