Renewable sites › Cranfield Airfield
Cranfield Airfield
Cranfield Airfield is an operational 1 MW solar farm in Central Bedfordshire, generating since 1 September 2018. Planning permission was granted on 28 May 2020, 32 months after submission. Operator of record: Cranfield Univsersity.
Planning and build timeline
| Application submitted | 12 October 2017 |
| Permission granted | 28 May 2020 32 months after submission |
| Operational | 1 September 2018 |
Screening a site of your own?
Central Bedfordshire approves 97% 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 Cranfield 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 3 agricultural land. The published survey does not split Grade 3 into 3a and 3b, so this alone does not settle whether the land counts as best and most versatile.
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.
Central Bedfordshire’s record on solar
Central Bedfordshire has decided 32 solar farms and approved 97%, taking a median of 3.2 months. See every solar farm decision in Central Bedfordshire →
Other built sites within 15 km
| Site | MW | Distance |
|---|---|---|
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 0.44 | 1.3 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 0.88 | 1.6 km |
Landfill Gas · Operational | 11 | 2.2 km |
Landfill Gas · Operational | 11 | 2.4 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 1.97 | 4.2 km |
Biomass (dedicated) · Operational | 16 | 5.2 km |
Wind Onshore · Operational | 1.5 | 5.3 km |
EfW Incineration · Operational | 65 | 5.9 km |
How big is Cranfield Airfield?
Cranfield Airfield has a recorded installed capacity of 1 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 Cranfield Airfield?
REPD records the operator as Cranfield Univsersity. 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 Cranfield Airfield approved and built?
The application was submitted on 12 October 2017. Permission was granted on 28 May 2020, 32 months later. The site became operational on 1 September 2018.
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 6603.
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