In response to media reports and a Written Ministerial Statement
today on Government guidance on planning for solar farms, the REA
(Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology) has
replied emphasising that planning guidance already ensures that
the highest quality agricultural land is not built on, takes into
account cumulative development concerns, and that the solar
industry works closely with the Agricultural sector and
complements farmers both in terms of diversity of revenue and
agrivoltaics.
The planning system for solar farms was reformed only 6 months
ago and clarified that solar farms should not be approved on the
highest-grade agricultural land. The need for this additional
intervention appears unclear.
Regarding food security concerns, solar energy would only take up
a tiny fraction of all the UK's agricultural land (using less
land than all the UK's golf
courses, as of Summer 2022) if all projects planned were to
go ahead, and helps to address climate change, which is the
single biggest threat to UK food security. According to DEFRA
statistics, climate change could reduce the UK's stock of
high-grade agricultural land by nearly three-quarters by 2050 if
left unchecked.
Read the REA 2024
Manifesto.
Dr Nina Skorupska CBE, CEO of the REA (Association for
Renewable Energy and Clean Technology), said:
“We need all the tools and technologies available to us to
reach Net Zero and we know that solar remains a highly popular
technology with the general public. While we understand that land
use must be planned carefully and do not want to see the loss of
productive land, the existing planning guidance already ensures
this, by banning solar farms on the best quality farmland and
considering ‘cumulative development' concerns.
Restricting further solar development would pose a serious
threat to the jobs and investment created by the solar industry
and the large solar farm sector that is being built now largely
without public billpayers' support. It would undermine the
Government's ability to meet a net zero power system by 2035 and
keep us locked in to expensive fossil fuels at a huge cost to
households and businesses. Therefore we call on Government to
publish their Solar Roadmap following the work of the solar
taskforce as soon as possible, to outline how else we can meet
their stretching but essential 70GW solar PV deployment
target.
