UK Trends: Dash For Solar Will Destroy Farmland For Decades

IE Comment; The latest strategy from the UK Government is to destroy arable and grazing farmland by covering it in solar panel farms. This is part of the energy transition policy, or de-carbonisation of UK infrastructure. For insurers it offers  some Commercial brands an opportunity to cover the building work, plus the maintenance of the panels for their estimated lifespan of 20-30 years. Then the dismantling and disposal of the panels, or recycling of some materials. All good.

On the downside, insurers and brokers in farming will lose clients forever. In a wider context Britain will have to import more food, thus using more carbon in shipping and air freight, plus freezing of perishable foods. The scale of this project in Rutland and Lincolnshire is huge, it will stretch for over 4 miles, blighting the landscape for decades. It also means UK citizens are hostages to overseas suppliers and the rationing of food as a weapon of war.

To be fair to Labour, this policy of vastly expanding solar capacity and finding ways for the Planning Inspectorate to greenlight them on farmland, was already in place under the previous Conservative government. See the planning and strategy notes here. 

The map below shows the extent of Mallard Pass solar panel farm.

Here’s the word from the UK Govt;

A new project proposes a Solar photovoltaic array and electrical storage and connection infrastructure, with a generation capacity of greater than 50 MW.  The application was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for consideration by Mallard Pass Solar Farm Limited on 24 November 2022 and accepted for Examination on 21 December 2022.

Following an Examination during which the public, Statutory Consultees and Interested Parties were given the opportunity to give evidence to the Examining Authority, recommendations were made to the Secretary of State on 16 February 2024.  This is the 83rd energy application out of 140 applications examined to date and was again completed by the Planning Inspectorate within the statutory timescale laid down in the Planning Act 2008.

Local communities continue to be given the opportunity of being involved in the examination of projects that may affect them. Local people, the local authority and other Interested Parties were able to participate in this six-month Examination.   (IE note, all objections were ignored)

The Examining Authority listened and gave full consideration to all local views and the evidence gathered during the Examination before making its recommendation to the Secretary of State.

The decision, the recommendation made by the Examining Authority to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and the evidence considered by the Examining Authority in reaching its recommendation are publicly available on the project pages of the National Infrastructure Planning website.