Project and planning record

The Scottish Government Energy Consents Unit identifies the project as ECU00006000, a solar generating-station development with South Lanarkshire Council as planning authority; the case page gives 9 October 2024 as the received date and, when checked on 9 November 2026, status “Referred to DPEA”. South Lanarkshire's local planning consultation was listed as P/25/0887. A planning-data aggregator reports that the council lodged an “Electricity Act – objection” on 25 March 2026, but the official decision notice and the referral's subsequent DPEA handling have not yet been examined. The ECU status and council consultation record are separate procedural facts; neither alone proves construction or final ministerial consent. Energy Consents Unit, case ECU00006000 · South Lanarkshire application reference as indexed by PlanIndex

The applicant described a proposed array of approximately 114,296 panels and capacity up to 85 MW on about 117 hectares, with tracks, substations, fencing and landscape planting. These are proposal specifications from the applicant's project page, not completed infrastructure. Applicant project description

Heritage evidence gathered for the proposal

Neo Environmental's 10 July 2025 Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment combines records searches, historic-map and aerial-photo review, lidar, a walkover and a phased geophysical survey. It describes no designated heritage asset inside the application boundary, but identifies six recorded non-designated sites and three unrecorded features. The report characterises the wider historic landscape as predominantly agricultural with scattered mining and processing features. It recommends an archaeological programme beginning with test trenching; at publication some fields had not yet been surveyed geophysically, and implementation depended on the planning authority and West of Scotland Archaeology Service. calderside solar farm cultural heritage assessment

The assessment's local findings include mapped limekilns and ironstone pits, a cropmark at Craigmuir whose castle interpretation remains unconfirmed, and the long-established Auchentibber farmstead. The report describes its courtyard group as containing multiple building phases, with the oldest fabric assessed as late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, and identifies trees and an associated historic garden or parkland on the 1864 OS map. It predicts indirect setting effects for the farmstead from the proposed layout but does not report a completed development or archaeological mitigation outcome. Auchentibber farmstead Prehistoric and archaeological sites of Blantyre