Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether community support for large-scale solar farms is a requirement in determining applications for such farms; and what grade of agricultural land is acceptable for the development of such farms.

Approval for large scale solar farms does not strictly depend on either community support or on grade of agricultural land.

The National Planning Policy Framework provides guidance to local planning authorities on the issues which they should take into account in considering applications for solar PV (including on agricultural land). Further guidance on solar PV was published in the “Planning practice guidance for renewable and low carbon energy” document. These documents can be found at the following locations:

• https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6077/2116950.pdf
• https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/225689/Planning_Practice_Guidance_for_Renewable_and_Low_Carbon_Energy.pdf

In 2014 we took action to close the RO to ground mounted solar PV larger than 5MW. We expect to publish our response to the consultation, which ran over the summer, on closing the RO to smaller solar installations,