The owners of a small estate in the green belt have applied for planning permission to install a ground-based solar array that will help supply their neighbours with an internet connection.

Martin and Deborah Cohen, of Newlands in Smiths Lane, Crockham Hill, near Westerham, want to install 120 black, ground-mounted photovoltaic solar panels in the corner of a sheep field on their estate.

The DC power generated would be run through trenched cables across the estate to batteries and an invertor unit housed in an existing outbuilding, so there would be no new buildings needed to facilitate the installation.

The panels would generate around 51,620 kWh per annum, which would be enough to meet the estate’s needs and would feed back into the local grid sufficient power to support around 15 additional homes.

The land is in the Green Belt and within the Kent Downs AONB and in the Eden Valley Low Weald Landscape Character Area.

However, the chosen location is within a dip in the landscape and has hedging on three sides which would largely hide the arrays.

The panels themselves would be secured to the ground with 20mm pins rather than set on concrete, so that at the end of their life, they could be removed leaving little disturbance to the landscape.

The panels would be laid out in east-west rows. Each panel will be tilted southwards at around 30 degrees from the horizontal. The maximum height would be 2.2m.

Entrance to the field is via a gate in Oakdale Lane, or from within the estate.

It is estimated construction will take just a week.

The land is grade 4 agricultural land - of a lesser quality - and is currently used for sheep grazing.

Sheep will be able to continue to graze around the panels once they are installed.

The Cohens currently host a backbone fibre route and pole for a road crossing for ‘AirFast,’ a Crockham Hill Community Interest Company.

The main dwelling at Newlands receives an internet feed from AirFast via a radio signal and re-transmits that signal to around 60 homes as part of the Crockham Hill community internet project.

It does this through an aerial that is mounted on the outside of the house.

The solar panels would in future allow the equipment to be powered from electricity produced at the site, which would support the continued free provision of the internet service to the local community.

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Details of the application can be viewed on the Sevenoaks council website under application number 24/01886.