Ed Miliband has approved Britain’s biggest solar farm despite objections from nearby residents who have likened it to Chornobyl. [some emphasis, links added]
The Springwell Solar Farm in Lincolnshire will have a capacity of 800 megawatts, enough to power some 180,000 homes a year, the Government said on Wednesday.
The development, proposed by EDF and Luminous Energy, is the 25th large solar farm approved by Labour since 2024, using planning powers that allow ministers to overrule communities when a project is deemed “nationally significant”.
It has proved divisive in Lincolnshire, where residents turned out in large numbers to object to the plans at various public hearings.
It will cover seven square miles of farmland in solar panels – an area 10 times greater than London’s Hyde Park – and affect 10 local villages and thousands of residents.
Residents claimed the loss of prime farmland and the effect on communities was too high a price to pay for the green energy the project would provide.
Local politicians had also accused Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, of having “made up his mind already” despite fears the scheme “would change the very nature of Lincolnshire”.
In 2024, Labour scrapped planning rules that blocked the construction of new solar farms on food-producing land.
Mr Miliband also designated large solar and wind farms as “nationally significant” schemes that planners should approve by default.
Marc Williams, of the Springwell Solar Farm Action Group, told Lincolnshire Live last May:
“The community [is] so concerned about this … Everyone’s against it, apart from those who will profit.
“We wouldn’t object to plans for a couple of hundred acres, but this is vast. It will be an industrialized complex like Chornobyl.
“People will go for a drive and see nothing but panels.”
Read rest at The Telegraph
