A CONTROVERSIAL plan to build a large electricity storage plant in the local countryside has been narrowly approved.

Novus Renewable Services applied in May 2023 for planning permission to install the facility to store surplus energy on farmland beside the Peterstow gas compressor station, in open country between St Owen’s Cross and Ross-on-Wye.

A high-voltage line already crosses the two-hectare site and a transmission tower stands within it.

With over 60 objections to the proposal, including from two parish councils, in was passed to councillors to decide on last week.

The ‘limited harm to the landscape character’ and loss of prime farmland would be ‘offset by the public benefits of a secure energy supply’, planning officer Rebecca Jenman said, recommending that members of the county planning committee approve the scheme.

But Peterstow Parish Council were dismayed that planning professionals could recommend this project, its chairman Cllr Brian Roe told the meeting.

“Such storage systems are acknowledged to be dangerous, and if a fire were to break out, it would merely be contained, not extinguished,” he said.

Local resident Richard Wheeler further claimed the potentially explosive and toxic site would need two emergency access routes rather than the one proposed.

And local ward member Cllr Elissa Swinglehurst said the proposed terracing of the sloping site and imposition of industrial features would bring a dramatic change to the area.

For Novus, Richard Turner said the site had been carefully selected, well away from local communities, and would operate largely unnoticed.

The battery technology is tried and tested while the proposed scheme met national fire service guidance including on-site storage for 228,000 litres of water, he added.

Planning committee member Cllr Bruce Baker said: “Novus’ plan seems a vital part of electricity infrastructure, to everyone’s benefit.”

The committee passed the proposal by five votes to four.