AN application for solar panels in the garden of a farmhouse between Puddletown and Tolpuddle will be decided at a planning committee this week.

The application, for the grounds of Burleston Farmhouse, has seen letters to Dorset Council against the scheme.

Planning officers at the area planning committee on Tuesday, February 25, are recommending approval, subject to conditions protecting existing hedges and trees.

The site, a mile from Puddletown on the Dorchester Road, is within the Cerne and Piddle Valley Landscape Character Area, which some objectors, including the area parish council, claim would be adversely affected by the ground-mounted solar panels.

The proposed solar array would sit at ground level and cover an area measuring 18 metres by 9.5 metres with each panel measuring 1.6 metres in length and 0.9 metres in width. Because of the proposed tilt of each panel, they would stand at a height of just under 0.5 metres. Planning officers say that given the height of hedges the views of the panels would be limited from the road with additional hedging also planned along the southern perimeter of the site. Questions were raised during the consultation process about the size of the panel array but officers, in their report to committee, say that the size is ‘not inappropriate’ for the substantial 5-bed farmhouse and its outbuildings. The panels will also be used to power three electric car charging points.

Officers say the proposal is in line with the council’s position on climate change and if excess energy were produced it would be fed into the national grid, another benefit.