The brief
We were commissioned to prepare a landscape masterplan accompanying a planning application for a utility-scale solar farm on agricultural land. The plan needed to demonstrate how the PV arrays would be set within the existing field pattern — not as a stark engineered intrusion, but as a contained, well-mitigated land use that retained the legibility of the surrounding hedgerows, tree belts and rural lanes.
Our approach
The masterplan retains the full existing hedgerow network as the primary structural framework, with the PV arrays laid out within the existing field compartments and access tracks following established field boundaries to minimise disturbance. New native hedgerow planting fills gaps and reinforces the overall enclosure, with a thicker buffer-planting strip along the most exposed edges where the scheme is closest to the surrounding rights of way. Within the array compounds, biodiversity margins and seasonal wildflower mixes are specified to lift the ecological value of land that would otherwise be a monoculture of PV panels.
The detail
Hedgerow management is calibrated to bring boundary heights up to approximately 3.5m where they sit below that, with an A-shaped profile that maximises both screening and ecological value, while taller existing hedges are retained at their existing height under less-intensive management. Offsets from field boundary vegetation protect Root Protection Zones and provide a generous maintenance buffer, with an additional metre offset from Category A trees. The masterplan was issued alongside the LVIA so the design and landscape work could be read as a single coordinated mitigation strategy.
Working on a similar project?
If you are preparing a planning application that needs landscape evidence — from a single dwelling to a major EIA scheme — we can help. Tell us about your site and we will respond with a fixed fee and programme within one working day.
