New plans to install solar panels at Kirkstall Brewery halls of residences have been approved at the second time of asking.
The panels will provide power for hundreds of students living in seven halls of residence at the site.
Planners refused similar proposals in June, raising concerns over glare and the impact on nearby residents.
In approving the application, a council officer’s report said: “This application is a resubmission of a recent refused application for the same development, this revised proposal has clarified the extent of protrusion of the panels from the roofs, and has included with it a glint and glare study.”
Applicant Cloverco hopes the new panels will make the buildings more energy efficient on the 8.7-acre canal-side site, which caters for more than 800 students.
The plans, documents and reports can be read in full here.
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Whilst hopefully few would object to measures to tackle climate change and moves to renewable energy sources, news of the approval of plans to install solar panels on the roofs of the Kirkstall Brewery student residences set alarm bells ringing and sent me scuttling to investigate the provenance of the panels. Sadly many of the solar panels used across the globe are imported from China where the Chinese government is accused of using the forced labour of incarcerated Uyghur people from Xinjiang Provence in North West China in their manufacture. There is credible evidence of the use of highly secretive internment camps plus other repressive measures including forced sterilisation, abortions, torture of Uyghurs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-62744522
The Website Green Match is just one of a number that lists a range of companies standing accused of complicity in this practice in their supply chains. The U.S. government has taken action to block more than 1,000 shipments of solar energy components from China’s Xinjiang region over concerns about slave labour. The UK’s Modern Slavery Act requires companies with over £36 million turnover to report their efforts to prevent modern slavery in their supply chains. However according to reports from various sources, several major solar companies have been implicated in the use of forced labour. The panels to be installed by the applicant Cloverco are Vertex S panels manufactured by Chinese owned company Trina Solar, one of the companies implicated in possible use of Uyghur slave labour. Some of the significant list of companies named have pledged to ensure links to slave labour are monitored and eradicated from their supply chains. Nonetheless human rights group Stop Uyghur Genocide claim that 45% of the world’s solar panels rely on polysillicons manufactured in Uyghur areas under conditions of slave labour.
I will be writing to Cloverco, Beckett University and the Students Union to see if they have checked the supply chain of the panels they propose using. Whilst there is no provision in planning law for council planners to refuse applications on the grounds of the provenance of the materials to be used it is nonetheless beholden both legally and morally on suppliers and their clients to check that Modern Slavery laws are being adhered to. Find our more at https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/solar-companies-linked-to-forced-labour