Large Solar Farms

Gareth Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) on calling this debate. For me, the debate is not about whether we need to diversify our energy supplies; of course we do. I want us to reduce our dependence on foreign energy, and to do that, we need renewable infrastructure. For me, it is not about “whether”, but about “how”—how we achieve our energy ambitions in a way that is fair and proportionate and has the support of our constituents, and how we build our renewable energy infrastructure in a way that does not harm the beautiful nature that surrounds us, the farmland that feeds us and the communities that bind us together.

It is a great pleasure to be joined by two right hon. Friends from Lincolnshire: my right hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), and for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). Lincolnshire has very flat land. It also has a large number of applications pending across the county. Some of the proposed developments are small, but some are extremely large. There is one in particular that I want to mention today: Mallard Pass, which my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) mentioned. It involves 2,170-odd acres of development land. This is obviously causing tremendous concern to local people.

I want to use the limited time that I have to put on record my thanks to the Mallard Pass Action Group: Keith Busfield, Sue and all the other campaigners, who have put forward to the developer extremely reasonable points, including on the impact on the local ecology and the biodiversity of the site; the loss of agricultural land for 40 years while it is covered in solar panels and the national implications that that might have for food production; and the implications that drawing power from the solar farm will have for energy storage and large lithium battery facilities.

As the local MP, I have taken these concerns of thousands of residents and put them to the developers, and I have to say that the response has been unconvincing. They have done little to directly address the concerns of my constituents, and they are relying on statutory requirements to take measures that would be undertaken regardless of whether there was local concern. The promise that the issues that have been raised will be considered as part of the development consent order submission means little, as that is the final stage of the planning process.

I suggest three things. First, we need to ensure that the Planning Inspectorate fully takes into consideration the concerns of local residents. The fact that all consultations are run by the developers leaves local people disillusioned about their effectiveness. Secondly, it is critical that we have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton said, a national strategy for solar farms. It must encompass both nationally significant and locally approved applications in order to ensure that counties such as Lincolnshire are not dominated by significant developments and small developments that add up to complete domination by solar farms across the county. Above all—I say this to anybody listening in the Grantham and Stamford constituency today—I want you to have a voice, so when there is a consultation, please let your voice be heard. Be part of it; contribute to any consultation; and have your say, because if you do not put your views forward, that makes it a lot harder for MPs like me in debates like this.