The growing number of applications for large-scale battery storage farms is putting pressure on Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service, with the county’s chief fire officer calling for a change in the law to reduce the strain.

Chief Fire Officer Ceri Sumner told councillors that it had become “resource-intensive” for staff to monitor all new planning applications in case they involve battery farms, as the service is not automatically notified of such schemes.

She is lobbying for fire services to be designated as statutory consultees in these cases, which would mean they must legally be contacted and asked for their views on battery storage developments.

Norfolk has seen a wave of applications for battery farms in recent months, alongside proposals for new solar and wind projects. Currently, staff at the County Hall-run service have to manually check planning applications across Norfolk’s seven district councils to ensure they can comment on the schemes.

At a council meeting on Wednesday (September 19), Conservative councillor Andrew Proctor raised concerns that fires at these sites could be “catastrophic” and extremely difficult to extinguish.

Mrs Sumner said the service makes recommendations when applications come to light to ensure developments are “safe for residents and our firefighters who may need to respond to them.”

She added: “We’ve got really good relationships with all the planning authorities across Norfolk, so where we put recommendations forward, they are usually taken on board and put into the planning application.
“But we don’t have any enforcement powers to insist on those on an ongoing basis, so that is something we are lobbying for and would like to see.
“In order to keep on top of those, we have to put resource from our protection function to monitor the planning portal and check when those applications are coming up.
“That is a resource-intensive activity which, if we were statutory consultees, we wouldn’t need to do.
“We will always provide input and advice to make any development as safe as possible, but the battery energy storage is the one where we’ve raised the profile because we feel we should be statutory consultees.”

The county council previously agreed, in July, to write to Energy Security Secretary Ed Miliband to express “serious concerns” about the growing number of battery storage applications.

At that meeting, Conservative leader Kay Mason Billig put forward a motion warning that firefighters could face major challenges tackling blazes at such sites.

However, Dr Catherine Rowett, leader of the Green group, criticised the council for spreading “sensationalist misinformation.” She argued that earlier fires involved battery systems using older technologies, while newer batteries now being proposed are safer.

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