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
Socialists under Starmer are going to destroy Britain. Due to green energy they have the highest electricity prices of the free world and the highest that the International Energy Agency discovered among 42 democratic countries. This due to green policies that simply don’t work because wind and solar are considered non dense power and are intermittent and unreliable. When the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine the price for no power is infinity. When this happens they require back up power like batteries or a natural gas power which both are costly. The idea that CO2 emissions will cause an existential threat is a massive hoax perpetrated by those who want to rule the world…. the United Nations and the WEF and other world organizations like WHO, and the problem is that they have the backing in some countries by billionaires who think they know more than the average person because they have money that talks. What a scam.
“…enough to power some 180,000 homes a year,,,”
Yup, 180,000 homes – most days, well some days at least, then for the nights – not so good. Get home from a hard day protesting and turn on the TV to see if you showed up in coverage – no TV. What a bummer…..
Why is a country that in the winter time gets very little sunlight due to how far north it is and even in the summer has many cloudy/rainy days thinks that spending the vast amounts of money to install these hideous monuments to stupidity? The UK is at the same latitude as the southern end of the Hudson Bay which is far north of even the northern border of the US.