A Toxic Blot: UK Solar Farms Ruining Views And Causing Misery For Residents

When Christopher and Heather Darwin retired to the Devon countryside 13 years ago, their view was a rolling green upland dotted with sheep and cows.

Today, they can hardly bear to look.

A sea of glinting solar panels stretches out, bank upon bank, across the fields surrounding the village of Pancrasweek near Bude.

The solar farm by the Darwins’ house is one of six within a three-mile radius and many locals already feel like prisoners in this new landscape of security fences, warning signs, and cameras.

Worse, there is another one planned just a few fields away – a monster which, at 164 acres, would be the biggest in the county.

‘I am very green but these schemes are not green at all,’ says Heather. ‘They are all about money.

‘Aside from looking at those hideous panels, our lives will be dominated by acres of metal, glass, CCTV, and generator boxes.

‘It’s not the country life I’d imagined I would retire to.’

Across Britain, solar farms are on the march.

Some 1,000 acres of rural land a month are earmarked for ‘photovoltaic’ panels and the miles of cabling that go with them.

The Government admits that more than a fifth of our farmland will eventually be lost to ‘green’ initiatives such as these.

Last week, The Mail on Sunday counted 270 solar farms under construction or waiting for planning permission around the country.

Environmental lobbyists argue that solar energy is a crucial part of a sustainable future, but they talk less about the growing doubts raised by scientists and angry groups of residents.

Because, apart from ruining the view, solar panels are also woefully inefficient at their only job – which is to generate electricity amid the cloud and rain of north-west Europe.

Then there is the question of disposal.

The materials the panels are made with have a life expectancy of fewer than 50 years and are difficult and expensive to recycle, raising the prospect of discarded panel mountains leaking dangerous heavy metals.

And with the majority of panels now made in China, there are fears – all too plausible – that some have been produced in forced labor camps, including those where members of the oppressed Uighur minority are imprisoned.

‘A power supply that is always both unpredictable and intermittent is not sensible,’ says Christopher Darwin.

‘In a few years’ time, if winter power cuts increase as expected, people will wonder why solar industrial sites in the countryside were considered anything other than expensive white elephants.’

The protesters have been joined by actor and local resident John Nettles, who keeps a smallholding nearby.

Best known for roles in Bergerac and Midsomer Murders, today Nettles features in a video that lambasts the spread of solar farms and, in particular, the proposed mega-development near the village of Pyworthy.

‘Enough is enough,’ he says. ‘People need to understand the enormous scale and visual impact.

‘The giant new project at Derril Water would desecrate the pastoral vista in this part of Devon, turning it into an industrialized landscape of solar panels and security fencing.

‘It would ruin 164 acres of pasture for at least 40 years. Decision-makers… have failed to take into account the carbon footprint of manufacturing 76,000 solar panels on the other side of the world, transported and installed here.

‘They are simply not low-carbon.’

So unsuitable is the British weather, it has been calculated that most UK solar farms will never get beyond 12 percent of their true generating capacity in the course of a year.

Solar energy contributed a measly seven percent of National Grid power last month, even though April was unusually sunny and dry.

In December, the solar contribution was a pathetic 0.67 percent of the total.

Dr. Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) think-tank, says solar energy makes no sense in this country and the many miles of paneling are likely to do more harm than good.

‘There is simply not enough sun,’ he says.

‘Perhaps in the Sahara, where no one lives, having these huge, tens of miles of solar panels may make sense.

‘But in Britain, I’m concerned about the unintended consequences.

‘You would need to carpet about five percent of Britain’s entire land in solar panels to generate enough energy to keep things working – and that’s only in the day.

‘Obviously, they don’t work at night. They leave a huge ecological footprint.

‘A single nuclear power plant sits on a square kilometer or so of land.

‘For solar panels to generate the equivalent energy, you’d need 10,000 times more space – maybe even more.’

Relatively sunny, at least in British terms, the South West has been particularly affected.

The Devon branch of the CPRE (formerly known as the Campaign to Protect Rural England) says that nearly 4,300 acres of Devon farmland have already been lost to solar development.

‘When does it stop? When there are no fields left for sheep, cattle, or wildlife?’ asks Penny Mills, director of Devon CPRE.

Read rest at Daily Mail