Why Sutton? Not because it’s an optimum site for solar development, but because it has an amenable landholder, a 132kV power line in proximity and its nearness to the ACT, where the power is destined for.

The developer has spent over ten months planning the project, with some 19 employees and consultants, and the community gets just 30 days to interpret and respond to the 678 page EIS, although that period has just been extended by two weeks by the NSW government. A just and fair system?

In recent months, the NSW government, in response to the Finkel Report, has been lauding the identification of three strategic renewable energy zones in the state.

“These zones can help unlock the state’s $80 billion pipeline of new generation projects. The result of this would be a more competitive wholesale market, and a market delivering least-cost energy to NSW,” the NSW Minister for Energy, Don Harwin, said in June.

Sutton is not within hundreds of kilometres of any of these zones and in the current drought, there are many small communities in those areas crying out for such investment to help them through this difficult period.  

The proposed site has 34 residences within two kilometres of the development, however, the developer (Renew Estate) states, “they will not be significantly impacted because there will be screening to mitigate the impact.”

This will be impossible due to the elevation of the majority of those residences. There will also be a 2.2-metre high-security fence around the entire 850 acres.

One family will have to drive through the development to get to their residence and will have solar panels on two immediate sides of their property that will never be able to be fully screened. That also poses a significant fire danger for them.

The NSW government’s own draft large-scale solar energy guidelines list a range of site conditions and constraints for such developments. This development fails on nearly every count of the identified criteria.

It is not ‘flat, low lying topography’; it does not have the ‘potential to be screened’; it is in close ‘proximity to dwellings’; will be ‘high visibility’ and it is ‘located in a valley with residences with elevated views’.

It is in an area of ‘threatened species’ and ‘native woodlands, grasslands’ and it is not in an area ‘identified by government as optimal for renewable energy development’.

The development also sits in a floodplain, with total catchment drainage to the site of approximately 3460 hectares, flowing to the Yass River catchment area: Yass’ drinking water.

It is in the RU6 5km transition (buffer) zone separating NSW from the ACT, a zone supported by Yass Valley Council and ACT and NSW governments to maintain the rural character of the area and prevent intensive development.  

The NSW government supported the zone due to its proximity to Mulligans Flat and Goorooyarroo Nature Reserves as it has, “biodiversity and ecological significance and provides connectivity between these nature reserves and the rest of NSW.”

And traffic movements through Sutton village and surrounding roads, including a school zone, will see up to 75 heavy vehicle movements per day, including A doubles, B doubles, low loaders and oversize trucks.   

The Sutton community does not support the development and is seeking at least 25 objectors to force the process to the NSW Independent Planning Commission, where they can more thoroughly prosecute our arguments against the proposal.