☀️ Solar Power at Whitlingham!
- Kate
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
We are delighted that our solar project is now starting at the Old Quarry Car Park. If you visit the park, you'll notice the works fencing has now gone up and work will begin shortly.
Whitlingham Charitable Trust have teamed up with local solar provider Barrington Solar to vastly increase the sustainability of our operations at Whitlingham Country Park and the Flint Barn Café.
There is a huge amount of electrical equipment required to run a successful café business, not to mention heating an 18th century flint barn through colder months. The enormous current costs certainly call for sustainable action.
Why that location?
The array will sit on the south face of the bund which lies next to Whitlingham Lane near the Flint Barn Cafe. This bund was created using spoil from the time when a gravel processing plant occupied the site during the 1990s.
There are various reasons why this location is suitable:
It is a south facing bank which maximises our access to sunshine!.. although not so much during the autumn and winter of course
The bund is near to existing electrical supply routes, making installation more straightforward
Heritage planning advisers were keen for us to avoid using the main area of the park on the other side of Whitlingham Lane, so we are not spoiling any of the most beautiful area with this development
In such a beautiful park, we have quite a challenge when it comes to new developments because we operate within listed parkland. This means we have lots of stages to get through in terms of planning consent and environmental impact on anything we do. This project has already been several years in the process so we are delighted it is now able to materialise.
The solar array is designed not to be visible from Whitlingham Lane, so it will be doing all its great work almost completely in secret! Visitors who park in our Old Quarry Car Park will see it, as will our neighbours at the Whitlingham Broad Campsite, but the majority of our visitors won't see it once some additional planting is also in place.
Great statistics!
We are set to save over 9,000 kg of CO2 output annually!
This is equivalent to more than 31,000 miles of car journeys
This is also the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by over 400 trees
This development will save the Trust around £10,000 in annual energy costs!
The work we do at Whitlingham has the environment at its heart, so this is an exciting step forward for us. The huge savings for the park will then be able to contribute to the park's ongoing work to improve visitor access, facilities and further developments for the public to enjoy.
Who has funded this project?
We have had some generous grant funding from local grant funders and the remaining balance will be funded by Whitlingham Charitable Trust
We are so grateful for the support of these organisations to enable this impactful development to go ahead.
What will happen next?
The bund area is not flat, so there will be some ground preparations to be done to begin with. These works will be completed by a local civil engineering company and disturbance and noise will be kept to a minimum during that first stage. A small enclosure will also need to be created to house the necessary components which allow the solar array to function.
Barrington Solar team and electricians will then be on site to install the array itself. The array will cover the majority of the south side of the bund to maximise solar benefit.
It's hard to believe, but it would take an even larger array than this one to cover all of our energy requirements to run the site. We simply do not have space to fit any more panels.
During the final phase, our park staff and regular volunteers will add to the existing planting on the north side of the bund and install some fencing around it to protect the array from vehicles in the car park.
Forward thinking
Famous inventor Thomas Edison died almost 100 years ago in 1931, but even back then he had the vision for a solar future. he said:
I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
We always have sustainability and the environment at the heart of any development at the park, and we cannot wait to become more 'green' with this new solar array in place.
Watch this space for updates!
