Solar Development: Newark

Llinos Medi Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Member is always welcome to come up a ladder with me in Newark. Perhaps I will pay him a visit as well to fix some Union flags.

The hon. Member is right to say that these projects affect constituencies the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. Many of them—all three projects I am raising today—are treated as nationally significant infrastructure projects. That means the final decision will land not with local communities or district or county councils, but squarely on the desks of Ministers in Whitehall. It is right that debates like this occur and elected Members such as myself have the opportunity to raise the arguments with Ministers before they ultimately make these crucial decisions.

Let me make one point crystal clear at the outset: this is not about nimbyism. When I was Housing Secretary, I heard Members of this House begin speeches with those words time and again, and my heart used to sink because invariably they would go on to make an argument that was at its heart nimbyism. However, I do not recall ever, in my 11 years in Parliament, raising in this House a campaign against a housing development in my constituency—not once. Newark has accepted thousands of new homes and new estates, and I have supported those developments. We have also accepted our share of energy projects. We host small-scale solar farms, which I have not objected to. We host battery storage facilities and have absorbed significant disruption from new and potentially exciting energy projects, such as the West Burton fusion project on the site of a former coal-fired power station. This is not a constituency that resists change. It is not a part of the country that is immune to energy projects. The entire history of north Nottinghamshire has been one of energy generation—it is in the blood of my constituents. My constituents are pragmatic, reasonable and patriotic people who want to share a part of the nation’s burden in meeting its energy needs, as they have done for generations, but what is being proposed now is on an extraordinary scale. It is disproportionate and damaging and it cannot be justified.

This has become a David and Goliath struggle. On one side are small villages, sometimes not even parish councils but parish meetings, and hamlets where neighbours have had to mobilise and join forces to get their views heard. On the other side are international companies with deep pockets, slick PR machines and armies of consultants. I pay tribute here in the House to those parish councils, parish meetings and campaign groups who have fought with such courage and determination. They have had to master planning law, pore over technical surveys and produce community responses, all with minimal resources. Contrast that with the developers: I have found them at times aggressive, loose with the facts and willing to submit surveys that are frankly absurd, so it is a David and Goliath situation.

Why are we opposing this development? First, I have never known an issue to arouse such opposition in my constituency. I surveyed residents, and 90% say no. The community is speaking with one voice, and let me say why. First, these solar panels are presented as clean and green, but as we all know in this House, the reality is murkier. Most panels sold in the UK contain materials sourced in China, often from regions such as Xinjiang where there is compelling evidence of forced labour. Britain should take a lead against exploitation, not collude with it in our supply chains.

Secondly, there are dangers from flooding and fire. These projects inevitably require vast battery storage installations. Around the world, we have seen that those batteries can ignite and that catastrophic fires can occur, sometimes releasing toxic smoke that is challenging to extinguish. Several such fires have already occurred here in Britain, as they have abroad. In the flood-prone Trent valley, the risks are greater. Putting panels, substations and batteries in areas liable to flooding presents a serious danger to life and property.

Thirdly, even if one supports solar, it should be put on rooftops and brownfield land first. Across Britain, there are 600,000 acres of south-facing industrial rooftops— warehouses, supermarkets, car parks—yet they stand largely empty. Why are we sacrificing our finest farmland when those spaces are still unused?

[Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)]

Communities in Newark are affected like communities on Ynys Môn. Productive land on Ynys Môn creates good agricultural outcomes and means a good rural economy. Productivity on Ynys Môn is £4,000 below the Welsh average, and building new large-scale solar will have an impact on that. Does the right hon. Member agree that the Government should reject projects such as Maen Hir and undertake economic impact assessments on such developments to safeguard rural economies?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. We should think about the impact on rural communities. Larger projects such as those that I am speaking about will have a profound impact on rural communities.

To go back to the point I was making, why are we not using every incentive possible to ensure that such projects are placed on warehouses or factories rather than on beautiful and important countryside? It makes no sense.

Fourthly, let me address the impact on the countryside itself. These are some of the finest landscapes in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. They will be scarred for generations. Some families will find solar farms just metres from their gardens. Imagine walking the dog not along a hedgerow, but between two 3.5-metre-high metal fences bristling with CCTV cameras. Imagine going for a run, flanked for miles not by rolling British countryside but by 4-metre-high walls of black glass. That is not the rural England that my constituents cherish.

Fifthly, there will be a massive impact on rural life. I believe in house building, but if we encircle villages with solar farms, we will make it nigh-on impossible to have organic housing growth in those villages in the years to come, at a time when our country needs new houses in rural communities.