The companies Solar Proactive and HorizonNL will appeal against a decision by the municipality of Midden-Drenthe. The companies think it is unfair that they have been taken out of the race to build a solar park at Klatering, near Beilen.
The city council decided last Thursday that the winning Groenlanden Solar Park near Klatering will be removed from the results of the ‘solar park competition’. At Solar Proactive, which is developing the project together with HorizonNL, that decision came as a bombshell. “Particularly because of the arguments that have been used,” responds Aldert Schaaphok, who speaks on behalf of the Greenlands project team.
Because Klatering is located in a meadow bird area, the construction of the solar park is excluded. The council decided this after a motion by Gemeentebelangen, MiddenDrenthe Nu, VVD and GroenLinks. They based their decision on advice from the audit office. He determined that it is a meadow bird area, but without protected status.
Councilor Jan Schipper (CDA) therefore believed that the plan could go ahead. “We have tried to be as careful and transparent as possible,” he says. But the parties Gemeentebelangen, MiddenDrenthe Nu, VVD and GroenLinks believed that the council would not comply with its own policy if it were to continue with the plans.
The debate about the solar park at Klatering already caused quite a stir last month. The municipality wrote a so-called tender out, a kind of competition in which the best plan for a solar park is selected. According to the jury, Zonnepark Groenlanden in Klatering was the best.
Much to the surprise of those around us. Residents and councilors raised the alarm after stating that “rules are not being followed” and “the municipality has made mistakes in the process”.
Klatering was marked in red on a map with possible locations for a solar park. That map was later adjusted. According to the municipality, it was still a draft version and was adjusted at the request of the council.
This is how the Groenlanden solar park became part of a larger political discussion. “We comply with all the rules and we have participated in the tender“, says Schaaphok. “We had hoped that we would be given the space to solve this together with residents.”
The audit office will further investigate the events surrounding the competition. “Let the audit office give the redeeming word,” says Schipper.