NEWCASTLE lawyers helped a Lincolnshire business win a £10m race against time and complete a funding package for the creation of one the UK's largest solar parks.
Moor Solar has a longstanding relationship with North East law firm Muckle and engaged it to advise on the creation a 2.8 megawatt solar park, on 20 acres of redundant farm land, near Long Sutton, Lincolnshire.
But a Government U-turn on the creation of larger solar panel farms it looked like it might miss the August 1 deadline for the 25% Feed-in-Tariff.
Peter Smeaton, director of Moor Solar explained that the deal he had with investors to run the solar park, was at risk as a result of the Government’s U-turn.
“This whole scheme represented a £10m investment and it had to go through before the deadline. Thanks to the expertise of Muckle’s Energy Team it did – on July 21.
“The change in the Government’s approach meant that projects like this had to be accelerated or abandoned. The Muckle team took up the challenge and helped to drive through a complicated suite of documents against some really tight deadlines.
“The Moor Group of Companies has worked with Muckle LLP for almost 10 years now and because of their sector expertise the energy team there was the obvious choice for us.
“We needed support that had the technical knowledge to make a scheme like this happen, that were capable of dealing with the City lawyers engaged by the investors and, crucially, who would take a no nonsense approach to the challenging but critical deadline.
“I am absolutely delighted with the results and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Muckle’s Energy Team to any other business looking for this specialist advice.”
The £10m solar park at Long Sutton is one of less than 20 schemes that managed to meet the government’s August 1 deadline and is the third largest in the country. The power generated by the PV panels generates enough electricity for 5,600 houses each year.
Steve McNicol, managing partner at Muckle LLP, said: “We are delighted to have supported Peter and Moor Solar on such an exciting project.
“This was uncharted territory and as one of just a handful of projects like this in the country Peter should be very proud of what he has achieved. Without his unstinting desire to make this happen the project would have fallen by the wayside in the same way that so many others did.
“We always enjoy working with Peter and are very proud that were able to help him make this renewable energy scheme a reality.”
