Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Joy Morrissey and Greg Smith

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Milton Keynes is very close to me. I visit Milton Keynes all the time. I have many friends in Milton Keynes. It is a great city. However, a line in the sand has to be drawn as to the amount of our countryside, our farmland and our food-producing land that we allow to be lost to development of whatever kind.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa), in his speech earlier, reeled off a list of things that were already happening in his constituency, where they are already playing their part. In my own constituency, while we have had concerns about a lot of it, there has been an enormous list of things. The amount of house building in Buckinghamshire has been extraordinary. The village of Haddenham is unrecognisable from what it was because of the sheer volume of new house building that has gone on there. There are also incinerators, and we are about to get a new prison. Despite our objections, HS2 has ravaged the middle of the constituency. It is not as though Buckinghamshire has not done anything.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We have given way to infrastructure, including HS2, motorways and data centres across the entire green belt with very little community consent, and now, with this new Bill, all community consent seems to be going out the window. How can we protect the vital green space in my constituency, which provides the lungs of London and which will be destroyed because everyone will want a piece of the small bits of green belt we still have left?

[Greg Smith]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. The point she makes is absolutely right and it applies equally to my constituency as to hers. In my constituency, the backbone of our economy is agriculture and food production. The Labour party used to say in its manifesto that

“food security is national security”

yet this Bill seeks to build all over the very land that our farmers in Buckinghamshire and across the country use to produce the very food that gives us national security.

I want to focus on the infrastructure implications from the energy sector. I entirely approve of transitioning to cleaner forms of energy production, but it is a point I have made in this House time and again, and I will never get bored of saying it, that it takes 2,000 acres of ground-mounted solar panels to produce enough electricity for 50,000 homes on current usage. That is before everyone has two Teslas—which is perhaps not the brand that people would choose now—on the drive. However, a small modular reactor needs just two football pitches to deliver enough electricity on current usage for 1 million homes. Why on earth in this country are we messing around with solar, destroying thousands of acres of food-producing land, when other clean technologies are out there that can clean up our energy and electricity production in a way that is kinder and gentler on our national fabric and rural communities?

When I hear the Secretary of State talk about, as she did in her opening address, protecting high-grade agricultural land, I take that with a large pinch of salt. That is because, in my constituency in Buckinghamshire, we have caught those paid exorbitant amounts of money to come and grade the land prior to a planning application deliberately testing the land in the headland of the field—the bit not used to grow crops or grass or to graze animals. Of course, they will always get a lower land grade by testing the headland. If the Government are serious about wanting to protect high-grade agricultural land, I would urge the Minister to look at measures he could take to ensure that the fertile part of the field is tested, not the headland.

HS2 Mitigation Projects: Inflation

Debate between Joy Morrissey and Greg Smith

Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important issue in the House. I want to focus on the impact that inflation has had on the ability of different institutions to deliver the community projects and mitigations that High Speed 2 previously agreed to in Mid Buckinghamshire. The cases are many in number, but I will illustrate the scale of the problem with particular attention to two pressing concerns: noise mitigation measures for St Mary’s church in Wendover and the provision of a new ground and facilities for Wendover cricket club.

HS2 has been deeply controversial across my Mid Buckinghamshire constituency and the wider county. I make no bones about my absolute and total opposition to HS2, which is well documented. Many of my constituents have suffered greatly as a result of the disruption that it has caused, from environmental damage to the impact on homes, businesses and local amenities, as well as the damage to our local infrastructure. That is not to mention the hideous cost to the taxpayer.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentions the cost relating to infrastructure. One of the huge impacts that goes unrecognised is the impact on roads and road surfaces. Not only are many areas of Buckinghamshire on a flood plain, but our roads get a huge amount of use, which is compounded by the HS2 traffic. Does he agree that that is not compensated for by the HS2 fund in any way?

[Greg Smith]

My hon. Friend and fellow Buckinghamshire Member of Parliament is absolutely right. Day in, day out, we see the impact of thousands of heavy goods vehicle movements having churned up our local road infrastructure. These roads originated as cart tracks and do not have deep substructures, so they get churned up very easily. The impact of such big infrastructure projects on our roads is considerable. I have talked about that many times in the House, and had a great deal of correspondence with Ministers on it. No matter what the infrastructure project, we have to get better as a country at understanding the construction impacts before a green light is given, so that they are properly mitigated. It is incumbent on HS2 to fix what it breaks. East West Rail, to be fair to it, has done that. It has resurfaced a number of roads around the Claydons where it has had compounds, and where there have been HGV movements. It is incumbent on HS2 to do the same.

From the outset, affected community organisations have been forced to negotiate their survival with HS2 Ltd, often at great cost to them and ultimately to the taxpayer, but when a town, village, neighbourhood or community is so brutally impacted by big infrastructure, I argue that there is a moral duty on the promoter—in this case, the state—to mitigate, compensate, and treat the places and people affected fairly. The rising cost of inflation since phase 1 was approved in 2017 has meant that commitments made by the state and HS2 Ltd—indeed, by Parliament, through the hybrid Bill process—are at risk of being delayed, watered down or even abandoned altogether. That is simply unacceptable.

One of the most egregious examples of such broken commitments is the case of St Mary’s church in Wendover. This historical and much loved place of worship has served the community for centuries, not only providing spiritual support but acting as a hub for local activities and events, particularly music concerts. HS2 Ltd had recognised that the noise impact from construction and, in the future, from passing high-speed trains would significantly affect the church, particularly during services and the concerts I have mentioned. As such, it had agreed to provide noise mitigation measures—above all, very sophisticated sound insulation.

Yet due to rising costs and the pressures of inflation since that particular mitigation was agreed in 2016, we are now being told that these measures may not be delivered in full, if at all. After conversations between the church and the project began more than eight years ago, the undertaking and assurance originally given by the Department for Transport have not been honoured, through no fault of the church, despite the project being contractually obliged to do so.

As such, with inflation, the original £250,000 cost referred to in the U&A will now result in less than 50% of the work being affordable, compared with what it would have covered at the time of the U&A. This was confirmed after I intervened to restart discussions, which had effectively stalled because of the fundamental unwillingness on HS2 Ltd’s part to engage meaningfully on what is a key community concern—an attitude that, as I have raised many times in this place, is evident across affected Mid Buckinghamshire communities.

This is completely unacceptable. A commitment was made, and the Government must ensure that HS2 Ltd honours it. The congregation of St Mary’s church should not have to suffer excessive noise pollution because of a failure to manage costs effectively or the basic fact of construction inflation over so many years. This is a matter of fairness and upholding trust, and ensuring that historic institutions such as St Mary’s are protected for future generations.

My second example of a broken promise relates to Wendover cricket club. As I said earlier, I could go much further afield in my constituency, but Wendover town has been particularly affected. This historic local club has been an integral part of the Wendover community for more than a century, offering young people and adults the opportunity to engage in sport, stay active and participate in community life. It is one of the few clubs across Buckinghamshire that offers the wide range of age groups for teams that compete across the whole country. It is part not just of Wendover’s identity, but of Buckinghamshire’s identity. By evicting the club from its grounds, HS2 is driving a wedge through everyone and everything there.

Due to HS2’s construction, the club’s existing facilities were rendered completely unusable—indeed, completely severed in two. HS2 Ltd originally pledged to provide new grounds and upgraded facilities to compensate for the disruption, to the tune of £200,000, through another of these undertaking and assurance agreements, signed in 2017. However, the club has now been informed that due to escalating costs, the new facilities may not be delivered to the standard originally agreed upon—or, worse, that they may not be delivered at all because of HS2’s reluctance to pay the cost as it is in 2025, or potentially 2026, if it takes that long.

Acting in good faith, the cricket club has already entered into a groundworks contract that includes approximately £90,000-worth of self-funded items. It is also considering a pavilion contract that currently includes approximately £180,000 of items, again self-funded, on the basis of receiving the U&A resource and its own reserves. The U&A states:

“The Secretary of State for Transport will, subject to Royal Assent, require the nominated undertaker to contribute the sum of up to £200,000 toward the reasonable costs of Wendover Cricket club relocating both its Ellesborough Road and Witchell grounds”.

These delays were wholly the result of HS2, so I ask the Minister for an assurance that, at a minimum, the nominated undertaker—in this case HS2 Ltd—honour the spirit of the U&A to Wendover cricket club with an inflation-adjusted figure.

The impact of this situation on local cricket and community engagement cannot be overstated. Wendover cricket club is a volunteer organisation that is trying to provide a service for the local community and encourage youth and adult sport and fitness. Its coaches teach young people discipline and teamwork and contribute to the health and wellbeing of the entire community. The loss of its promised facilities would be a devastating blow to the area and to my constituency.

I understand the significant economic pressures that our country faces. The war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions and other global economic factors have all contributed to rising costs. However, those factors must not be used as an excuse to renege on commitments that were made to communities directly impacted by HS2. HS2 Ltd and the Government must ensure that funds are allocated properly to deliver on the promises that were made to the people of Wendover and beyond in my Mid Buckinghamshire constituency. If savings in HS2 Ltd need to be found—and let us face it, they do—they should not come at the expense of community projects that were explicitly agreed to as mitigation measures. Instead, we should look at where efficiencies can be made in the wider HS2 project, to ensure that local communities are not short-changed.

I urge the Minister to take the following immediate actions. First, will he confirm HS2 Ltd’s commitment to delivering the promised noise mitigation measures for St Mary’s church, Wendover, and ensure that no backtracking takes place? Secondly, will he guarantee that Wendover cricket club will receive the new ground and facilities that were pledged, with no reduction in quality of delivery due to cost-cutting measures? Thirdly, will he ensure full transparency from HS2 Ltd regarding how inflationary pressures are impacting community mitigation projects and explore alternative funding mechanisms to safeguard those commitments? Fourthly, will he hold HS2 Ltd accountable for ensuring that agreed mitigation measures are ringfenced and are not subject to arbitrary cost-saving exercises that disproportionately impact communities?

My constituents did not ask for HS2, but they have had to endure years of disruption, environmental damage and upheaval in our communities. The very least that they deserve is for HS2 Ltd to honour the commitments that it has made to mitigate the very worst excesses of that impact. It is a matter of integrity, fairness and doing the right thing by the people of Wendover and Mid Buckinghamshire. I look forward to the Minister’s response and, hopefully, to working together to ensure that these promises are kept.

Energy Development Proposals: Mid Buckinghamshire

Debate between Joy Morrissey and Greg Smith

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is always on point on these matters. I will come to the important matter of food security later, but he is right. The inefficiency of some energy projects coming forward in Mid Buckinghamshire, as well as in communities in Strangford, I dare say, is a huge challenge not just to food security but to the rural way of life that those in our communities enjoy.

It takes 2,000 acres of solar panels to generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes on current usage—before everyone has two Teslas on the drive—yet a small modular reactor requires just two football pitches to produce enough power for a million homes on current usage. It cannot be right that the Government are pursuing this technology. I put it to the Minister and to right hon. and hon. Members across the House that nuclear is the answer, but fingers seem to be in ears whenever it is raised. I assume that that is obvious to the Government, as is the vital importance of food security, which is directly compromised by taking land out of food production and giving it over to solar.

The Government seem content with ploughing on. Last week’s revelation in The Daily Telegraph of intentions to convert a tenth of our farmland to use for net zero gives a blank cheque to those intent on destroying rather than preserving our countryside. The countryside is for farming. It is not a building site for solar panels, power plants, battery storage sites or wind turbines. It is for growing food. It is for the local communities and businesses that rely on it.

Attempts to take land away from food production in my constituency are simply unjustifiable. An unjustifiable 3,000 acres of land are already lost or at risk of being subsumed by solar panels. Those 3,000 acres are taken out of food production, no longer farmed by families who have farmed them for generations but are now turfed out, with little to no compensation, and the land unlikely ever to return to food production. Let us bear in mind that that is just for the projects that have been proposed or consented to.

Rosefield is a monster project of immense scale. For this monstrosity alone, over 2,000 acres of land—much of it arable grade 3a and 3b—have been sold off to EDF Renewables for the construction of vast swathes of solar panels right in the heart of the Claydons. That land produces a 10-tonne-a-hectare wheat harvest. Many farmers would bite your right hand off to get that, but it is cast aside by the consultants and proposers of the site as low-grade land. It simply is not. As the name suggests, the area is rich in clay soil, which is incredibly valuable to farmers as it retains rich levels of both nutrients and water. It allows us in Buckinghamshire to produce immense quantities of wheat, barley, beans, oilseed rape and much more.

We are facing a clear trade-off between food security and what is considered today to be energy security. Members will know that I have consistently questioned the suitability and sustainability of solar as a renewable source of electricity. There is nothing renewable about land left to rot underneath solar panels, or the huge amount of emissions from the construction of these vast sites.

We in Buckinghamshire face an equal if not greater threat from battery energy storage sites. These shipping container-sized units use hundreds of lithium ion batteries to store surplus energy, which is later sold back to the grid to meet demand when required. Not only are the battery storage sites noisy and unsightly, but they displace water run-off because of their concrete bases, create light pollution, are a target for vandalism and are a huge fire risk, as I will discuss shortly.

On top of that, such sites are not a sustainable form of energy production. In fact, they do nothing more than hold surplus energy, no matter how or where that energy has been generated. In fact, with less than 5% of today’s energy consumption coming from solar, the chances are that the energy stored by these sites has not come from the site next door. It is utterly shameful of BESS promoters to label their projects as “sustainable” and “part of the solution”. It is, I am afraid to say, simply a matter of profiteering off the taxpayer while doing little to nothing—that is, for those who do not enjoy a chemically fuelled bonfire. It has been proven time and again, with tragic results, how dangerous battery energy storage sites can be. In September 2020, for example, a fire at a BESS site in Liverpool took 59 hours to extinguish. While the promoters may spout about new technology guarding us against fire today, it does not and cannot justify placing such sites in rural areas. That is because—surprise, surprise—it takes far longer for fire crews to respond in rural areas, especially ones that are prone to flooding, such as the Claydons, in my constituency, where three BESS applications have been lodged in just one year.

It is not surprising that pouring concrete on to farmland exacerbates flooding, or that hundreds of shipping containers ruin the view for miles around.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

The proposed energy developments will create a strain on our valuable farmland in Mid Buckinghamshire and across Buckinghamshire more widely. Many parts of the county are on a floodplain, which will already be under additional strain because of these different energy developments. Will the Minister look again at these proposals? We already have infrastructure demands because HS2 and housing, as well as energy development, are all going into a very constrained area in Mid Buckinghamshire.

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and fellow Buckinghamshire Member of Parliament for that intervention. She is absolutely right that the strain being put on our small, rural county from so many projects—the cumulative impact of the energy proposals that are the subject of my speech, HS2, East West Rail, mega-prisons and so much more—makes the attack on our countryside and the risk, to go to her point on flooding, all the worse.

I just listed a number of things that should not be surprising. However, they seem surprising to promoters, who seem totally oblivious to the idea that farming gives us food, gives people jobs and a livelihood, and gives communities an identity and a vital source of income. However, that does not seem to have stopped them flooding the planning system in Mid Buckinghamshire with these BESS applications. What makes it all the more confusing is that, according to the Government’s newly formed national energy systems operator:

“The number of speculative connection applications has substantially risen over the past few years resulting in an excessively high volume of contracted parties when in reality only about a third of the volume of projects will make it to Completion.”

What we are actually seeing—what is very visible in Mid Buckinghamshire—is a number of these so-called zombie projects that are clogging up the system and causing incredible concern and outrage to local communities, but that may actually never happen. That is simply absurd.

My constituents are constantly being told that the projects are needed for a transition to net zero, yet the vast majority will not even be completed. That goes to show how misguided the Government’s so-called energy security policy really is: unable to deliver and throwing my constituents under the bus. It should therefore not be a surprise that the misguided and highly speculative nature of the BESS projects has led to countless rejections by local planning authorities.

Less than six weeks ago, when presented with its first BESS application—a 500 MW site in the Claydons—Buckinghamshire council resoundingly rejected it on the grounds of fire risk, lack of access and an inappropriate site location. Our local paper even described the plan as a “terrorists’ dream”. The same goes for York council, which rejected a 100 MW site in the village of Osbaldwick on fire grounds. The same reason led East Renfrewshire council to reject a 40 MW site in the village of Eaglesham in Scotland and Dorset Council to reject a 60 MW facility in the village of Chickerell. I trust the Minister will have taken note not just of those rejections but of the many others which are, if anything, increasing by the week. This, I hope, demonstrates the clear, strong opposition from local communities to BESS facilities.

It is not just about battery storage, solar farms, substations or whatever else forms part of the Government’s flawed approach to energy security. For constituencies such as mine, it is about the cumulative impact of all that and more, over which, time and time again, the local community has had little, if any, say. For my constituents in the Claydons, nearly every major project has been Government-sanctioned with little to no thought as to how, when we combine one of the UK’s largest solar installations, three battery storage sites, two major new railways, a new substation and several new housing developments, a collection of small villages in the middle of the countryside is meant to cope. The short answer is: it has not.

Initially faced with both East West Rail and HS2 construction, the latter ongoing for many years to come, my constituents in that part of Buckinghamshire now face a raft of new energy infrastructure, as well as yet more housing and a new prison. The cumulative impact is devastating, made worse by the fact there is no mechanism—no mechanism—within the planning system that allows the cumulative impact of multiple major infrastructure projects in the same area to be accounted for when local authorities are presented with them. It seems logical, yet the Minister must recognise that there is no circumstance that necessitates the flattening of an area that serves no benefit to local residents and leaves them in a near permanent state of disruption and misery.

The latest example of that glaring omission is the application and subsequent rejection of Statera’s plan, which I spoke about a moment ago, to build a 500 MW BESS facility in the Claydons. It turns out that the promoters did not check that they could even get a grid connection on completion, as confirmed by National Grid when pressed on that substation expansion plan before Christmas. This is yet more evidence of the speculative nature of Government-backed infrastructure projects. Just as well, with Statera’s plans having now been rejected.

Elsewhere in my constituency, yet another solar installation, at Callie’s farm near Ilmer, was recently granted planning permission, joining two other nearby sites at Bumpers farm and Whirlbush farm in Kingsey. As a result, when someone enters Buckinghamshire on the train from neighbouring Oxfordshire, they are met not with farmland but with acres upon acres of solar panels. Further south, and directly affecting my constituents in Little Missenden, we find yet another potential BESS site at Mop End, which if built would require infrastructure reaching 6 metres in height right in the heart of the Chilterns.

In Long Crendon and the surrounding villages, I and the local community are fighting against Acorn Bioenergy’s proposed anaerobic digester, which once again cannot be justified in the middle of the countryside, not when there are 140 lorry movements a day during construction and then operation through villages—I declare an interest as they include my own village of Chearsley—that simply cannot cope and cannot be expected to cope. These are small rural villages with small rural roads, and often the front doors to people’s homes, and the entrances to primary schools and children’s playgrounds, are off those very same roads.

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point about the shocking amount of development that is happening, and it is not just about energy; he is also making an excellent point about the lack of local consent. It is shocking that the Government are not honouring the opinions of local people.

[Greg Smith]

My hon. Friend has made exactly the point that I want to make, with, perhaps, more succinctness than I have been able to manage. This is indeed about local consent. It is about communities giving their views and actually being listened to when it comes to these projects. Far too often, the desktop exercise that is done in London or Birmingham or Leeds or Manchester, or any of our great cities, is done largely by those who have little or no understanding of rural life—of the way our rural roads actually operate, the way our farmland is actually farmed, and the way our countryside actually works. If local people were listened to a little more often, we might not have some of the problems that these energy infrastructure projects, or projects such as HS2 or East West Rail, throw up on the land that any local will tell you floods three or four times a year.

Those doing the desktop exercise say, “Oh, that is nothing. It is nowhere near a floodplain. That land will not flood.” I have stood on many of these sites in my own wellington boots a number of times, on the land that the consultants in the city say will not flood, with the water lapping up at the top of my boots, and have gone home with wet socks. That is a reality that local people often understand in a way these consultants and desktop exercises never would.

I gently invite the Minister to acknowledge that no matter how sustainable such projects claim to be, the hard truth is that whether it be during the construction or operation of these sites, the transportation of materials effectively offsets any benefit and does permanent damage to a local area, exactly as it has with HS2. Only this week I objected to yet another BESS application in the Claydons, in which the developer has not even bothered to include a battery safety management plan. It is utterly disgraceful, and a reflection of just how speculative these applications are becoming.

Despite this speculation on solar and battery storage, wherever we go in Buckinghamshire there are few if any warehouse roofs with solar panels. That is a real shame, given the amount of unused roof space that could generate 15 GW of solar-derived energy without damaging a blade of grass or any crop growing in any field. That is equivalent to 46 million solar panels. Why, then, are the Government not actively incentivising the use of large-scale roof-mounted solar, particularly on industrial buildings—the distribution centres and warehouses and factories that we see popping up all around us, certainly near my area when we go out towards Bicester or up towards Milton Keynes? That is a question that is rightly being asked by farmers across my constituency who stand to lose everything when a solar developer comes along, or indeed someone involved in any energy project, with little or no compensation provided.

This is, I am afraid, fairly typical in relation to infrastructure, especially in rural areas where a farm is not just a source of income but someone’s livelihood, and the very shape and beauty of the landscape in rural communities. When it comes to a project the size of Rosefield, which primarily affects tenant farmers, the loss of income not just for individual farmers but for the whole area is devastating. That is because, unlike a freeholder—in this case, the Claydon estate—tenant farmers do not have ownership rights and are therefore not entitled to proper compensation, although this and other sizeable projects are spearheaded by large multinational energy companies for which compensation is normally just a rounding error.

However, it is not just farmers who are affected. Unpaid parish councillors across my constituency are spending ever more time fighting this infrastructure tidal wave. I dare say many have become rather good at it following years of doing battle with HS2, but that by no means justifies thousands of hours each year being spent by countless individuals—countless heroes—sometimes combined with significant sums of money, fighting projects that local residents do not want and did not ask for. They, along with farmers and local business owners, are paying the price for this nonsensical approach to energy security.

For projects that are given the go-ahead, there is little chance of promoters paying up for the damage that they will invariably do to our local road network. That is the sad reality for infrastructure projects, as we have seen with the countless others that I have referenced, although I am proud of the work that I and Buckinghamshire council did to push East West Rail to pay up for the damage it caused. There is no such prospect with energy infrastructure, but the fact is that, with so many sites in one area, the impact on our roads from all the construction traffic would be far worse than any promoter is prepared to admit. Just as we have seen with the railways and the highways works clash, it will delay all projects in the area, ultimately costing the taxpayer and prolonging the misery for my constituents.

This is the reality. If something is not done, we will lose our ability to produce food and we will see the continued erosion of rural communities, and all while doing little to source our energy sustainably. Energy infrastructure does not belong on farmland. It does not belong in Mid Buckinghamshire. Let us drop this nonsense and go for nuclear instead.