For historical reasons, as we were near to the former, coal mines and resultant Power stations and the National Gid, our Parishes of Hillam and Monk Fryston are at the heart of the national energy transition.
On Sunday 17th August, first Supergrid Transformer arrived at the new substation being built at Rawfield lane. This is part of the Yorkshire Green project which is the first element of the Great Grid upgrade.
Other developments are also happening. Nearby, the former Ferrybridge power station is the site of a lot of developments. Already a 150MWH Battery Farm has been built and started operating in July. Going forward the owners SSE announced plans in June to apply for planning permission to build a 50MWH ‘Green energy’ Hydrogen Production Plant. This will use ‘green electricity’ generated in their wind farms elsewhere in the UK and North Sea. They hydrogen will then be transported by special vehicles to the local glass industry to help decarbonise the factories.
SSE also announced a third big development, that they are applying for permission to build a new 800MWH New generation, Hydrogen ready, gas -powered power station. If it goes ahead, it will be used as a rapid turn on – turn off standby facility in much the same way Drax does now.
If approved, this will lead to a further potential develop which could affect Hillam, Gateforth and Burton Salmon, the building of a new 10km gas pipeline between the nation gas grid pipeline at Gateforth and its destination, the new gas power station at Ferrybridge.
Irrespective of the above, the ‘final’ piece of the jigsaw was also announced in July when the Government announced it had given a grant of £95m to Northern Gas Networks to fund the final feasibility study to build the core NE England Hydrogen transmission (pipeline) network. This will be used initially to move hydrogen from two new production plants possibly in Teeside and Humberside to major gas uses such as the new Ferrybridge PS site.
Recently, in early august, we learned in early august that Noventum, the operators of the planned Hillam Solar Farm had lodged an appeal to overturn North Yorkshire Council’s rejection of their planning application. We do not know when the appeal will be heard.
Our new local project group, Together Hillam and Monk Fryston, have written to the Planning Inspector pointing out that if they allow the planning application to go ahead, then the Community benefit arising should be increased to be in line with voluntary levels of grant agreed by the solar panel industry organisation. Currently they are not.
In late July and early August, we delivered a community consultation document in the form of a booklet to every household in Hillam and Monk Fryston asking for your feedback on our embryonic activities. We would ask anyone who has not responded to do so before the end of September. If you have lost your booklet, you can obtain one at the Keys, Village Store or at the SeptemberFest (12th and 13th September) or email [email protected].
Ray Newton
Monk Fryston and Hillam Community Sustainability Project
