Equans starts building Barkham Solar Farm in November, eight months after grid rules paused it: 43,000 panels, a new greenway and £1m a year for the council.

Building work on Barkham Solar Farm will start in November. Wokingham Borough Council has signed a contract with Equans to build it on council farmland off Barkham Ride, and says it should go live next year (Wokingham Borough Council, 21 September).

That is a turnaround. In January the council paused the project. Changes to national grid connection rules had pushed its full connection back from 2028 to “some time between 2031 and 2035”, and the council said it would not be responsible to sign a multi-million-pound contract without that certainty (Wokingham Borough Council, 8 January).

What is being built

The council’s announcement and its project page list:

  • about 43,000 solar panels on a 52-hectare site
  • security fencing, sensor-controlled lighting and CCTV around the perimeter
  • a new greenway through the site, joining the proposed Rook’s Nest Wood extension to the north with California Country Park to the south
  • a signalised pedestrian crossing where the greenway crosses Barkham Ride
  • 2.66 hectares of new woodland on the southern edge, which the project page puts at about 4,700 trees
  • meadow grassland, hedgerows and about 1,000 fruit trees planted with the local charity Freely Fruity

The site sits north of California Country Park, west of Finchampstead and south of Barkham village. Planning permission was granted in 2022 under reference 211081.

The money

The council says the farm will make a surplus of more than £1 million a year once it is running, after paying the cost of borrowing to build it. That income goes towards council services.

Its forecast output is 31,000 MWh of electricity a year, which the council says is enough for about 9,400 average UK homes. The project page, last updated in January, gave slightly different figures: about 28.6 million kWh (28,563 MWh) a year, covering more than 10,500 homes on Ofgem’s usage figures, and a carbon saving of 5,914 tonnes a year. The September announcement does not explain the change.

What the announcement does not say

The January statement said the farm kept its initial grid connection date in 2027, but that full connection had slipped to between 2031 and 2035. The September announcement says the farm will “go live next year”. It does not say whether the full connection date has moved back, or how much of the farm’s output can be exported before then.

That matters for the £1 million figure. In January the council said uncertainty over export capacity was the reason it could not sign.

What it means for you

  • If you drive through Barkham or Arborfield: the electricity will reach the grid through underground cables to the substation on Barkham Road, opposite Ye Olde Leathern Bottle. The project page says Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks has been looking at a cable route along Edneys Hill and up Blagrove Lane, which would mean roadworks. The council says it will publish disruption on One.Network; we will add any closures to our Wokingham roadworks page.
  • If you walk or cycle: the greenway will give a traffic-free route between Arborfield and Finchampstead in the south and Barkham in the north.
  • If you pay council tax: the surplus is meant to support services at a time the council describes as one of “significant financial pressure”. Our council tax bands page has this year’s charges.

Cllr Imogen Shepherd-DuBey, executive member for finance and governance, said signing the contract was “a major milestone” for the project.