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Locals win right to veto solar farms in bid to keep to keep panels out of the countryside
Daily Mail|Tamara Cohen|Jul 10, 2013
The chance to veto the building of massive solar farms that blight the countryside is to be given to residents living nearby. After promising to empower local communities to oppose onshore wind farms, a minister announced last night that sprawling fields of solar panels will also be curbed because they are ‘increasingly controversial’.
The chance to veto the building of massive solar farms that blight the countryside is to be given to residents living nearby. After promising to empower local communities to oppose onshore wind farms, a minister announced last night that sprawling fields of solar panels will also be curbed because they are ‘increasingly controversial’.
- New planning guidance to be issued to local councils this summer
- Solar farms must not 'override the planning concerns of local communities'
- Farmers can rake in as much as £50,000 from installing them in fields
The chance to veto the building of massive solar farms that blight the countryside is to be given to residents living nearby.
After promising to empower local communities to oppose onshore wind farms, a minister announced last night that sprawling fields of solar panels will also be curbed because they are ‘increasingly controversial’.
Energy minister Greg Barker said: ‘Solar has a big bright future in the UK, but not in any place and not at any price. I want UK solar targeted on industrial roofs, homes and on brownfield sites, …
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- New planning guidance to be issued to local councils this summer
- Solar farms must not 'override the planning concerns of local communities'
- Farmers can rake in as much as £50,000 from installing them in fields
The chance to veto the building of massive solar farms that blight the countryside is to be given to residents living nearby.
After promising to empower local communities to oppose onshore wind farms, a minister announced last night that sprawling fields of solar panels will also be curbed because they are ‘increasingly controversial’.
Energy minister Greg Barker said: ‘Solar has a big bright future in the UK, but not in any place and not at any price. I want UK solar targeted on industrial roofs, homes and on brownfield sites, not on our beautiful countryside.
‘The public are rightly keen on clean solar power but we mustn’t lose that support by deploying enormous arrays in the wrong places. Our new planning guidance will make this crystal clear.’
The new guidance on renewable energy, to be issued to local councils later in the summer, will make clear that the need for green energy, including solar farms, ‘does not automatically override environmental protections and the planning concerns of local communities’.
Dozens of large-scale solar farms have sprung up in recent year as farmers put up acres of them to rake in up to £50,000 a year in green subsidies.
More than 100 new planning applications are currently in the system and work on a large-scale installation in Wiltshire is due to begin later this month.
But it will now be far more difficult to set up a solar farm on greenfield land or areas of outstanding natural beauty, according to a source in the energy department.
The new planning guidance will also state that ‘care should be taken to preserve heritage assets, including the impact of planning proposals on views important to their setting’.
This will not affect small scale solar installations which families can install on their roofs or farmhouses, or can be put up on industrial land.
Energy minister Greg Barker said: ‘Solar has a big bright future in the UK, but not in any place and not at any price. I want UK solar targeted on industrial roofs, homes and on brownfield sites not on our beautiful countryside.’
In a sign the government is determined not to let solar farms create the same controversy as wind farms he added: ‘The public are rightly keen on clean solar power but we mustn’t lose that support by deploying enormous arrays in the wrong places. Our new planning guidance will make this crystal clear.’
Mr Barker said he would encourage solar panels on public buildings which are not controversial such as the roof of the Bentley Motors Factory in Crewe, in Powis Castle in Wales and the ‘solar bridge’ at London’s Blackfriars station.
Campaigners near solar farms in rural beauty spots say they have become a sea of black silicon slabs, which are allowed by councils to meet their renewable energy targets.
People who set up their own solar panels benefit from the feed-in tariff, which is a fee they get off their energy bills from selling electricity they generate to the National Grid.
This has been slashed by around two-thirds over the past year after the Government set the level far too high, but people who benefitted from it in the early days in 2010-11 have their fee fixed for 25 years and continue to benefit.
Last month Communities secretary Eric Pickles ordered councils to prevent unwanted wind farms being imposed on communities and damaging the landscape, which will also be included in the forthcoming new guidance to planning officials.
He said: ‘Some local communities have genuine concerns that when it comes to wind farms insufficient weight is being given to environmental considerations like landscape, heritage and local amenity.’
However green campaigners say the planning system is increasingly rigged against renewable energy and Britain may not be able to meet legally binding targets to cut carbon emissions.