Large Solar Farms

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I agree with my right hon. Friend and neighbour. We need Ministers from, I suspect, several Departments to provide absolute clarity to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, and to local planning authorities, given the cumulative impact of these large-scale solar farms. My right hon. Friend has a village that, if all these planning applications go ahead, is likely to be surrounded by solar farms, as could the village of Camblesforth. By the way, Camblesforth has approved a solar farm close by, but the cumulative impact of huge solar farms causes understandable concern for residents.

All four solar farms include containers full of batteries on farmland. The land to be used for the proposed Helios farm is almost all “best and most versatile”—category 2 and 3a—land that currently grows cereals and root crops. About 60% of the land in the Boom Power proposal is best and most versatile, as is 58% of the land in the Wade House Lane proposal. In contrast, the three applications submitted in 2015 were all on category 3b land, and therefore not within this classification, hence they did not receive the number of objections that these large-scale proposals have received. With these four solar farms, we are talking about a total of 5,500 acres, or nearly 9 square miles, with a large percentage of it being best and most versatile agricultural land.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The concern of my constituents is precisely that the solar farm described by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) is just the tip of the iceberg, and that Oxford colleges will look to have a huge network of solar farms that will blight the Oxfordshire countryside for years to come.

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, as have most colleagues this evening. It would be interesting to know how many people who work at those colleges, which I guess are the developers, would be prepared to live in the middle of the site.

I also note that there is a changing public response to solar farm proposals. There has definitely been an abrupt change in public opinion from support to opposition. There were only two objections to the first solar farm near Camblesforth, but the residents group I met a few weeks ago that opposes the latest proposal has almost 500 members. The most common objection to the project concerns the loss of productive farmland. They say the land for the Helios proposal could grow more than 4,000 tonnes of wheat a year, or 10,000 tonnes of root crops such as carrots or parsnips. They point to brownfield sites, of which there are several in the Selby district, or the roofs of buildings. Crikey, we have a number of ex-coalmine sites in the Selby district, and some large farm buildings have already been fitted with solar panels, which has the added advantage of providing power for energy-intensive operations such as grain drying.

I appreciate that we have only half an hour and the Minister needs to respond, but residents have lots of other considerations when they raise objections to large-scale solar, including the loss of residential amenities, especially where homes are going to be surrounded by solar farms. There are concerns about safety in the light of fires and explosions at large battery storage units.

There is also the fact that applications receive temporary approval. It was initially 25 years, but I understand it is now 40 years. I remember when the Selby coalfield was given approval. That land was supposed to be returned back to farmland when mining stopped but, guess what, that has not happened.

People have these concerns I am outlining. They are concerned about the noise from the switchgear; the visual impact of the fences and the cameras; and the low credibility of some of the biodiversity net gain proposals. I could go on, but I will not, because I know that the Minister is itching to get to her feet to tell us when we are going to have answers to some of the questions colleagues have raised.

Solar power has reached the point where it makes a significant contribution to our power generation, and it can continue to do so, but we have to make sure it is done sensitively. This is not just about using words; we need clear guidance. I am encouraged by some of the noises made about what could be in the revised wording of the national planning policy framework, but the proposals for solar that are coming forward now are much larger than we have previously seen. We are seeing an increasing level of opposition to them; we do not normally get this many colleagues in the House for an Adjournment debate. If that opposition from communities and Members of Parliament continues, this will impede our progress in getting towards net zero. The points I have raised need to be addressed by the Minister, and I appreciate that input may also be required from Ministers in other Departments.