Renewable sites › Cressing Solar Farm (Phase 1)
Cressing Solar Farm (Phase 1)
Cressing Solar Farm (Phase 1) is an operational 5 MW solar farm in Braintree, generating since 16 March 2016. Planning permission was granted on 12 November 2015, 4 months after submission. Operator of record: Octopus Investments.
Planning and build timeline
| Application submitted | 24 July 2015 |
| Permission granted | 12 November 2015 4 months after submission |
| Operational | 16 March 2016 4 months after consent |
Screening a site of your own?
Braintree approves 96% 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 Cressing Solar Farm (Phase 1)’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.
Braintree’s record on solar
Braintree has decided 23 solar farms and approved 96%, taking a median of 3.6 months. See every solar farm decision in Braintree →
Other built sites within 15 km
| Site | MW | Distance |
|---|---|---|
Battery · Operational | — | 3.1 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 35 | 3.1 km |
EfW Incineration · Under Construction | 49.8 | 3.5 km |
Anaerobic Digestion · Under Construction | 1.8 | 3.5 km |
Battery · Under Construction | 57 | 4.3 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 0.19 | 4.3 km |
Battery · Under Construction | 10 | 5.5 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 5 | 7.2 km |
How big is Cressing Solar Farm (Phase 1)?
Cressing Solar Farm (Phase 1) has a recorded installed capacity of 5 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 Cressing Solar Farm (Phase 1)?
REPD records the operator as Octopus Investments. 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 Cressing Solar Farm (Phase 1) approved and built?
The application was submitted on 24 July 2015. Permission was granted on 12 November 2015, 4 months later. The site became operational on 16 March 2016, 4 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 5497.
Novarly Parcel · official public data, read properly · parcel.novarly.com
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