GREAT Update - April 2024
Published: 21 June 2024
April 2024
UPDATE FROM Graveney Rural Environment Action Team (GREAT)
We are now in our 6th year of active campaigning. The highlight of the last year was the refusal of the BESS and knowing that, following some National Planning Appeals, it is not completely impossible to win an appeal.
We continue to report to the Parish Council at each meeting.
GREAT is very grateful to the following organisations, experts and individuals who have shared their knowledge and expertise freely with the villagers in Graveney and Goodnestone:
· Professor Sir David Melville CBE, BSc, PhD, Hon DSc, FInstP, Sen Mem IEEE(USA) Vice-Chair, Faversham Society. (Sir David is a Faversham resident and GREAT has been very fortunate to count on his local and expert knowledge)
· Professor Peter Edwards who is the Statutory Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at Oxford University, and assisted Prof Goodenough, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and "Father of the Lithium Battery". Prof Edwards says his Oxford predecessor didn't think a mass rollout was wise because of the considerable fire hazard. Daily Telegraph 24/11/2023 "We must put a stop to the electric vehicle revolution - before someone gets hurt." "Lithium-ion batteries are unsafe, so why are we pushing on with the EV revolution regardless?"
· Professor Peter J Dobson OBE, BSc, MA (Oxon), PhD, C Phys, F Inst P, Member of the ACS, FRCS. Dr Bruno Erasin BSc, PhD.
· Swale Borough Council
· CPRE
· Solar Campaign Alliance
· Helen Whately MP
· Last but not least – the Parish Council
The main actions undertaken by GREAT during the year include:
· Detailed responses to the Management Plans, which were shared with the community. Sessions and support for villagers to put in objections to the BSMP which resulted in more than 100 objections from individual residents
· Contribution to the PC and Faversham Society’ s inputs at the BSMP planning Meeting
Our Mantra which we have re-inforced at every opportunity:
At the 2021 Energy Storage Summit, the Deputy Fire Safety Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, Charlie Pugsley stated that : "If you've got foreseeable events or got systems with the potential to either harm people or harm the environment, why would you not want to apply a retrospective look to it, to actually see that it's safe, or anything can be done."
He further stated that the London Fire Brigade has spent the past few years "reflecting on what was foreseeable" since the tragic Grenfell Tower fire at a high-rise housing unit in 2017, which was exacerbated by the building's flammable cladding: "If we know some things could fail catastrophically or it could have those effects," he said, "it's going to be a difficult day if one of us is standing there in Court saying we knew about it but we didn't do anything."
· Attendance at fortnightly Traffic Management Group meetings and actively highlighted deficiencies in the Construction Management Plan.
· Active Campaign to re-instate the Golden Hour
· Active campaign to stop all day concrete transport
· Continued to update the GREAT website and Facebook pages.
· Campaigning against light pollution – which is ongoing.
· Raising concerns about water pollution with relevant statutory bodies and supporting 1 near neighbour whose garden has been totally flooded
Challenges :
· Difficulties in communicating with Swale Borough Council following the loss of a number of senior planners who left the Council last year and the refusal of the BESS, which was recommended by the Planning officer.
· Preparing for the inevitable appeal.
GREAT in collaboration with the PC have also been committed to supporting the village in their objections against the 2 Skylark sites and this has resulted in many objections from residents.