William Blake’s hymn Jerusalem contrasts his dream of heaven in an idyllic England’s “pleasant pastures seen” with “those dark Satanic mills”. His dismay at industrial incursions across a spoiled countryside resounds. Some 220 years after Blake wrote those words, our fenland home is threatened by seemingly endless solar installations, pylons, and interconnector substations. All eat up vast tracts of land and scar the landscape.
Lincolnshire’s farmland is the most productive in the country; which is why so much of the food that is consumed across Britain is grown here and why planning applications to build massive solar installations on swathes of prime agricultural land threaten national food security. Recent proposals combined put at risk 9,109 hectares, or 1.3 per cent of the total land across Lincolnshire. This will both destroy the character of the county and mean reducing domestic food production, so making Britain yet more dependent on imported foreign foods.
Last Wednesday, one such proposal for a large 48 Mega-Watt solar installation at Holbeach Bank was refused, after an effective campaign, in which I worked with local councillors, including Conservative council leader Nick Worth, to make clear that this application contradicted the Government’s national planning policy, which confirms that “large-scale solar projects [should] be located on previously developed or lower-value land”.
Everyone who understands energy provision knows that, though renewables can be an important part of an energy mix, we need the flexibility provided by the kinds of energy provision that can meet rapidly changing demand in a way that solar and wind cannot.
When solar power is deployed, surely it should be either on brownfield sites or, better still, on industrial buildings or domestic properties? After all, warehouses are springing up all over the country, with barely any solar panels to be seen - these are the kind of place which ought to be solar powered, not across vast tracts of Lincolnshire’s fields! In Germany, a much higher proportion of solar power is located on buildings.
The Prime Minister has added his voice to efforts to protect farmland. He said:
“We must also protect our best agricultural land. On my watch, we will not lose swathes of our best farmland to solar farms.”
My objections to the proposal for the massive solar installation at Holbeach Bank apply to all the similar local land needed to feed the nation. Whilst this time the common-sense of councillors prevailed, looking forward, determination must displace doubt, for this will be the first of many such battles.
My Solar Installations Survey will be distributed in the coming weeks. It can be returned to my Office by post or by email – the more responses we receive, the better the strength of feeling will be made clear. Alongside it, I have launched a petition against plans to litter our area with huge pylons – once again details are available from my Office.
Together, we can and must fight for England’s “green and pleasant land”.
