A parish council in East Kent is considering setting up its own power station.

St Margaret’s Parish Council, between Dover and Deal, is investigating ways to make the village carbon neutral and if possible to pump energy into the national electricity grid.

The parish council has set up an energy-saving committee which, with local partners, is considering a range of options including wind turbines and tidal power.

Tony Fielding, an energy surveyor, said the first was unlikely to get planning approval because of problems over aviation communications with aircraft using Manston and the tidal conditions at St Margaret’s Bay were not sufficient for the latter.

But under serious consideration was the creation of a biomass generator fuelled by crops that would use five per cent of the agricultural land around the village.

Talks about establishing this form of power generation are currently taking place with the district council and Dover Harbour Board. Mr Fielding said a generation plant would ideally be near the A2 or major road for the traffic carrying the harvested crops.

It was expected there would be a three to four year payback time on the cost of establishing a biomass generation plant. Income would come from selling electricity generated back into the national grid.