Renewable sites › Birch Airfield
Birch Airfield
Birch Airfield is an operational 5.6 MW solar farm in Colchester, generating since 29 June 2015. Planning permission was granted on 16 September 2014, 3 months after submission. Operator of record: Push Energy/ NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF).
Planning and build timeline
| Application submitted | 23 June 2014 |
| Permission granted | 16 September 2014 3 months after submission |
| Operational | 29 June 2015 9 months after consent |
Screening a site of your own?
Colchester approves 95% of solar farms. Redline puts that number, and everything else the record holds, against your own boundary: the authority’s actual approval rate and decision times, every designation inside the red line, agricultural grade, 1 m LIDAR earthworks, how contested the grid is, and yield with a P90 — before you spend on a consultant.
Arrives prefilled with Birch Airfield’s recorded coordinate — swap in your own postcode or coordinates.
What this site sits on
The recorded coordinate falls on land surveyed as Grade 2 agricultural land.
REPD gives one representative coordinate per scheme, not the site boundary, so this describes the point on record rather than the whole site — a large site can straddle a designation edge. Boundaries come from planning.data.gov.uk, which publishes for England only.
Colchester’s record on solar
Colchester has decided 19 solar farms and approved 95%, taking a median of 3 months. See every solar farm decision in Colchester →
Other built sites within 15 km
| Site | MW | Distance |
|---|---|---|
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 5 | 1.3 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 2.3 | 1.4 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 40 | 2.6 km |
Battery · Operational | — | 2.6 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 6.15 | 4.1 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 49 | 4.1 km |
Landfill Gas · Operational | 3.9 | 4.1 km |
Landfill Gas · Operational | 2.7 | 4.8 km |
How big is Birch Airfield?
Birch Airfield has a recorded installed capacity of 5.6 MW. That figure is the capacity registered in REPD, which is the scheme as consented — the metered output of a site can differ.
Who operates Birch Airfield?
REPD records the operator as Push Energy/ NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF). Ownership of built renewable assets changes hands regularly and REPD is published quarterly, so treat this as the operator of record rather than confirmation of who owns it today.
When was Birch Airfield approved and built?
The application was submitted on 23 June 2014. Permission was granted on 16 September 2014, 3 months later. The site became operational on 29 June 2015, 9 months after consent.
Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD), Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Open Government Licence v3.0, plus planning designation boundaries from planning.data.gov.uk (England only). REPD is published quarterly and covers schemes of roughly 150 kW and above. Capacity is the installed capacity on record, not metered generation. Operator is the operator of record at the last extract, not confirmation of present ownership. Reference 2187.
Novarly Parcel · official public data, read properly · parcel.novarly.com
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