Who Owns the St Mary’s Solar Farm Land? The Furnival Title Deed, Enviromena’s Funding Chain, and What Planning Committee Must Ask (25/0542/FH)

We’ve spent the last few days doing the thing that residents always end up doing when a big infrastructure proposal lands on the Marsh: taking the glossy brochure claims, then following the paper trail down to bedrock.

This piece — the application for a solar farm on land opposite Marten Farm, St Mary’s Road, Romney Marsh 25/0542/FH – pictured in orange below —  and to go before the planning committee on the 20 January 2026, is not just an argument about renewable energy. It’s an argument about land control, accountability, and whether Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) is being asked to grant permission to a corporate stack where the “front door” is a planning consultancy-style UK limited company… but the “engine room” sits inside UK limited partnerships that don’t have to publish accounts.

And there’s another point locals keep raising, for very good reason: this is prime Marsh farmland. When somebody asks you to trade 40 years of agricultural use for 40 years of panels, you’re entitled to know: who is being paid, who carries the risk, who walks away if things go wrong, and what binds future owners to clean up?

The title deed doesn’t “suggest” Furnivals — it names them

The title register for the site is clear. The freehold title is K686288, described as “land on the north west side of St Mary’s Road, St Mary in the Marsh, Romney Marsh (Freehold)”.

The registered owners are:

• Stephen Furnival

• Valerie Anne Furnival

• Douglas Furnival

• Louise Furnival

All shown “care of Hurley Trustee Services Limited” at Q3  Leatherhead, and — crucially — they are listed “as Trustees of the W.S. Furnival Pension Fund”. 

The title also shows a purchase price of £993,000 bought on the 29 October 2020 – for this piece of land and others.

Two immediate “plain English” takeaways for residents:

1. This is not land casually “available” for development. It sits inside what appears to be a pension-fund trusteeship structure. That’s a perfectly lawful and common arrangement — but it usually means decisions are taken with long-term value and risk in mind.

2. The Furnivals aren’t peripheral. They are the registered proprietors. The solar developer is working through them, not around them.

The land isn’t just “owned by the Furnivals” — it’s already tied to a solar SPV by restrictions and an option

Here’s where the title becomes seriously interesting — and where the “they don’t own the land” point needs refining.

Yes: the applicant company doesn’t own the freehold.

But the title register shows formal, registered hooks that strongly indicate the solar project isn’t just a chat over the farm gate.

(a) Two restrictions that control who can sell/transfer the land

The proprietorship register includes:

• A standard restriction preventing a “sole proprietor” disposing of the land in certain trust-money situations without court authorisation. 

• A second restriction stating: no disposition (sale/transfer etc.) can be registered without written consent signed by Hurley Trustee Services Limited (Company No. 08401005) at the Leatherhead address. 

That’s the trusteeship mechanism, in legal form.

(b) A third restriction — naming a solar company — linked to a contract dated 3 February 2025

This is the big one.

The register says no disposition can be registered unless there is a certificate signed by “St Mary in the Marsh Renewable Energy Limited” (Company No. 15279851) — or their conveyancer — confirming clause 8.3 of an agreement dated 3 February 2025 has been complied with (or doesn’t apply).

That means: a solar-company interest has been embedded into the title register itself. The land can’t simply be dealt with without reference to that contract.

(c) An “option to take a lease” — registered by unilateral notice

The charges register then states there is a unilateral notice for “an option to take a lease” exercisable within 3 years from 3 February 2025, including provisions to extend the option period.

And it identifies the beneficiary as St Mary in the Marsh Renewable Energy Limited (15279851), at Unit 15–16 Diddenham Court.

So, in blunt terms:

• The Furnivals (as pension trustees) own the freehold. 

• A dedicated solar SPV holds an option to lease (and has it registered).

• The title is restricted so that future dealings have to respect the 3 February 2025 agreement. 

This is not “nothing”. It’s a real legal structure already in place — and it matters for the planning committee, because it changes what “deliverability” looks like.

The planning application’s own paperwork confirms: Certificate B, not Certificate A

The Application Form uses Certificate B, the route used when the applicant is not the sole owner and there are other owners/tenants who must be notified.

It states notice was served on (names partly redacted in the public copy) including:

• “Louise Furnival Trustees of the W S Furnival Pension Fund Hurley Trustee Services Ltd” at 1 New Walk Place, Leicester LE1 6RU, date notice served 19/03/2025

• and another listed party at “15 Diddenham Court…” also notified 19/03/2025

The declaration is signed by Steven Bainbridge, “Head of Planning”, dated 19/03/2025.

Two “granular” observations here:

1. The Leicester address vs the Land Registry address
   The title register shows Hurley Trustee Services at Leatherhead (KT22 7TW). 

2. The application lists a Leicester address for Hurley Trustee Services.

That may be an administrative address used for service — but it’s precisely the sort of detail planning officers should reconcile, because Certificate B is meant to be legally robust

1. The Diddenham Court party
   The application lists an owner/tenant at Diddenham Court. 

2. Meanwhile, the title register shows the option beneficiary solar SPV at Unit 15–16 Diddenham Court. That looks like the same corporate ecosystem — which brings us neatly to…

The “who’s behind it” structure: Enviromena at the front; a fund/LP ladder behind

The applicant named in the wider submission set is Enviromena Project Management UK Limited. The application documents and drawings repeatedly show the applicant’s address as 15 Diddenham Court, Reading. 

The group structure visible through Companies House “persons with significant control” (PSC) and officer listings sets out a ladder where:

• Enviromena Project Management UK Ltd is controlled by Enviromena Contracting Ltd

• which is controlled by Enviromena International Holdings Ltd

• which is controlled by Enviromena Limited

• which is controlled by SOLARMENA LP

• and Solarmena LP shows control links involving AIP Infrastructure LP, plus GP entities typical of fund governance.

At the AIP Infrastructure LP level, the PSC list includes entities including BAE Systems Pension Funds Trustees Limited, Arjun Infrastructure Partners Limited, and Arjun GP as controllers.

What a lay reader should take from this

None of this is illegal. Plenty of infrastructure is funded through layers.

But it does mean: the people signing local planning drawings are not necessarily the people whose capital is at stake, and not necessarily the people you can practically pursue if decommissioning is disputed 35 years from now.

That is why residents keep asking for a simple, committee-ready diagram: Who owns it? Who operates it? Who profits? Who guarantees clean-up?

The solar SPV on the title deed is staffed by familiar Enviromena names

The title deed names St Mary in the Marsh Renewable Energy Limited (15279851) as the option-holder/beneficiary.

Companies House shows that company’s directors include:

• Mark Anthony Harding (director appointment shown)

• Christopher David Marsh (director appointment shown)

Those names are also present across the Enviromena group companies in the chain (the “same people in the room” pattern).

So, on the ground:

• The Furnival trustees own the freehold; 

• A named solar SPV holds the option; 

• And that SPV appears staffed by the same director cluster seen in the wider Enviromena corporate network.

This is precisely why it’s unhelpful when planning debates stay stuck at “they don’t own it”. The reality is more nuanced: they may not own the freehold, but they appear to have structured legal control to enable delivery.

The paperwork oddity we can’t ignore: the “wrong” company number keeps popping up

In the planning submission set, Enviromena’s details sometimes cite Company Number: 11225654. 

But Companies House shows 11225654 belongs to ENVIROMENA ASSET MANAGEMENT UK LIMITED, registered office 15 Diddenham Court…

Meanwhile, the applicant company in the planning form and PSC chain is Enviromena Project Management UK Limited (a different company number in Companies House records).

This may be templating sloppiness. It may be a marketing document that references a sister company. But from a governance perspective, it matters because planning permission attaches to an applicant, and local people are entitled to know:

• Which exact legal entity is promising mitigation?

• Which entity holds the long-term obligations?

• Which entity will be the operator in year 12, after refinancing or sale?

If the paperwork can’t keep the company number consistent, the committee should at minimum insist on a clean, signed clarification.

The Furnivals: “big farmers on the Marsh” isn’t just folklore — there’s public record context

We’re cautious here. We are not going to invent a profile. But there are a few verifiable, public points of context.

The Land Registry record ties the land to the W.S. Furnival Pension Fund, via trusteeship. 

Hurley Trustee Services Limited (08401005) is the named trustee-services company controlling dispositions in the register. 

There are also long-standing Furnival-linked entities in public registers, including W.S. FURNIVAL(BROOKLAND) LIMITED (00999678) with officers listed on Companies House.

And there is historical public reporting connecting a farmer named Stephen Furnival – pictured of Honeychild Manor Farm in the St Mary in the Marsh area with disease-control reporting during foot-and-mouth concerns (as quoted by The Guardian and also a milk contamination issue in 2020).

What HOOM (Hands Off Our Marsh) say — and where it collides with the developer narrative

HOOM’s St Mary in the Marsh page frames the solar farm as “16MW” and says it would cover “about 40 acres of grade 1 and 2 farmland”, which they describe as “irreplaceable”.

They also raise a very practical fear: construction traffic — saying HOOM understands heavy construction vehicles “will access the site via the A259 through New Romney.”

Now compare that with what the project’s own website says. On the developer-facing site, Enviromena states construction traffic would access the site using an “existing field access”, turning off St Mary’s Road “onto Bittles Green”.

That doesn’t mean one of them is lying. It may mean:

• there are multiple possible routes,

• the Construction Traffic Management Plan (CTMP) is not being communicated consistently, or

• people are talking about different legs of the journey (strategic approach vs final site entrance).

But if you’re a resident who might be passed by HGV movements for months, you don’t want “may”. You want a mapped, enforceable routeing plan, with monitoring, with penalties for breach.

This is exactly the sort of “small detail” that becomes the lived reality of a project: not the megawatts, but the mud, noise, and convoy route.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly — in human terms

The good

• The land position is not vague. The freehold owners are named, and the solar SPV’s option is registered.

• The project is presented as a finite life proposal — 16MW for 40 years is repeatedly stated in the project material set. 

• The corporate chain is traceable to UK registrations (even if it gets opaque at the LP level).

The bad

• The applicant does not own the freehold, and delivery rests on leases/options continuing to hold together over time.

• Address inconsistencies around service and trusteeship (Leatherhead vs Leicester) deserve clarification because Certificate B is a legal instrument, not a vibes-based document.

• Company-number inconsistency risks muddying which legal entity is making which promise.

The ugly

• The ownership ladder ends in limited partnership architecture where accounts transparency is reduced, and where “who ultimately carries the can” can become hard for ordinary residents to track.

• Track-record databases are not verdicts, but they can be signals. For example, a parent entry for “Arjun Infrastructure Partners” with six cases and a penalty total stated since 2010 of £1,439 (including categories described as “environment-related offences” and “water pollution violation”, albeit shown with £0 penalties).

That isn’t a conviction sheet — but it is enough to justify extra scrutiny of governance and compliance culture when fund-linked entities sit behind critical infrastructure.

What we’d ask the Planning Committee to pin down on 20 January — before any vote

We’re going to keep this short, because the committee pack will already be heavy.

1. Clarify the applicant identity and obligations
   A signed note confirming which company is the applicant, which company will own/operate the asset, and why 11225654 appears in project materials.

2. Publish a simple beneficial-ownership diagram
   Not a Companies House breadcrumb trail — a one-page diagram residents can understand.

3. Decommissioning security that survives resale
   Not just “a condition”. Ask for an enforceable mechanism that binds successors, given the LP/fund architecture. 

4. A definitive construction traffic routeing plan
   Because HOOM’s understanding and the project website’s description are not the same story.

5. Confirm land-control deliverability
   The title shows an option exercisable within 3 years from 3 Feb 2025. Is the timetable aligned with the planning process and grid programme?

Closing: why this all matters

It’s tempting for big planning decisions to become a binary shouting match: “climate emergency” versus “save our fields”. But there’s a third issue that’s too often ignored: democratic accountability.

If the council is being asked to approve 40 years of industrial infrastructure on Marsh farmland, the public is entitled to see — in crisp, reconciled paperwork — who controls the land, who controls the company, who controls the money, and who is legally on the hook when the last panel comes off the last steel frame.

That is not anti-renewables. That is pro-governance.

And on Tuesday 20 January 2026, FHDC’s Planning Committee should make sure the record is clean enough that nobody — councillor or resident — is left squinting at a corporate shell game after the permission is already granted.

The Shepway Vox Team

Not Owned By Hedgefunds Or Barons