Renewable sites › Widehurst Farm
Widehurst Farm
Widehurst Farm is an operational 5 MW solar farm in Maidstone, generating since 15 March 2017. Planning permission was granted on 3 March 2016, 5 months after submission. Operator of record: Wirsol (formerly Susenco).
Planning and build timeline
| Application submitted | 1 October 2015 |
| Permission granted | 3 March 2016 5 months after submission |
| Operational | 15 March 2017 12 months after consent |
Screening a site of your own?
Maidstone approves 83% 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 Widehurst Farm’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.
Maidstone’s record on solar
Maidstone has decided 18 solar farms and approved 83%, taking a median of 1.9 months. See every solar farm decision in Maidstone →
Other built sites within 15 km
| Site | MW | Distance |
|---|---|---|
Anaerobic Digestion · Under Construction | 2 | 4.3 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 0.5 | 5.3 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Under Construction | 49.9 | 5.3 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 9.2 | 6.9 km |
Battery · Operational | 40 | 7.3 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 6.6 | 10.6 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 14.3 | 12.1 km |
EfW Incineration · Operational | 51 | 14.2 km |
How big is Widehurst Farm?
Widehurst Farm 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 Widehurst Farm?
REPD records the operator as Wirsol (formerly Susenco). 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 Widehurst Farm approved and built?
The application was submitted on 1 October 2015. Permission was granted on 3 March 2016, 5 months later. The site became operational on 15 March 2017, 12 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 5824.
Novarly Parcel · official public data, read properly · parcel.novarly.com
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