Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative MP for Totnes, Brixham and the South Hams in Devon, has criticised her party’s stance on large-scale solar farm developments.
Wollaston took to Twitter to decry what she called the industrialisation of the countryside. She wrote:
Solar panels should be on roof tops and brownfield sites, not industrialising the farmland we need to produce food
— Sarah Wollaston MP (@drwollastonmp) June 22, 2013
Vast swathes of solar 'farms' are getting planning permission in areas where housing would be declined yet even more industrialised 1/2
— Sarah Wollaston MP (@drwollastonmp) June 23, 2013
2/2 little debate about land lost to food production or future implications as then become bleak brownfield sites
— Sarah Wollaston MP (@drwollastonmp) June 23, 2013
Just in case anyone harbouring fantasies that solar 'farms' don't industrialise farmland here's close up pic.twitter.com/AND1TWhAoJ
— Sarah Wollaston MP (@drwollastonmp) June 23, 2013
Covering prime farmland with sterile PV arrays won't power the nation just starve it, impoverish the fuel poor & desecrate rural Britain
— Sarah Wollaston MP (@drwollastonmp) June 23, 2013
The UK market has seen an unprecedented amount of large-scale solar developments during 2013. According to analysis by NPD Solarbuzz, by the end of Q1 2013, large-scale projects had increased dramatically and now account for a quarter of cumulative PV demand in the UK, with ground-mount PV installations providing over 50% of UK PV demand in the 12-month period ending 31 March 2013. However, the increased deployment of solar farms has not gone unnoticed, especially among politicians.
Wollaston’s concerns were echoed by fellow Conservative MP for South East Cornwall, Sheryll Murray, who earlier this month asked prime minister David Cameron to help locals object to solar farms. Responding to the criticisms, the minister for energy and climate change Greg Barker said:
@drwollastonmp Already cut tariff for ground mounted #solar,warned against inappropriate greenfield farms & will add sustainability test.
— Greg Barker (@GregBarkerMP) June 23, 2013
Speaking to Solar Power Portal, Barker warned that solar could lose the current level of public support it enjoys if there are “too many irresponsible large-scale developers, and by irresponsible I mean developments on prime agricultural land that also impact on visual amenity”.
However, in the video embedded below, Barker acknowledged that solar developments on low-grade agricultural land could be “distinctly possible”: