Rishi Sunak’s administration has signalled it will support the growth of solar farms in England and has rejected the prospect of an effective ban put forward under former Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Two ministers ruled out extending planning protections for high-grade farmland to moderate quality 3b land, as had been floated by former Environment Secretary Ranil Jayawardena.
Speaking to the Commons’ Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey backed “a lot more” solar generation on farms, including on 3b land.
She also raised a challenge that solar farms commonly face – connecting to the grid.
Coffey earlier told the MPs that that she would be driven by the evidence on land use and food security.
Farming Minister Mark Spencer later clarified Coffey’s position in the Guardian newspaper.
He said: “We shouldn’t be stopping farmers who want to diversify their income from doing that as that would be harmful, so I’d have no problem with them putting some solar panels down on 3b land.”
As almost all solar farms are situated on such land, it would have had a seriously adverse impact on the ability of the sector to deliver on the Government’s target to reach 70GW of generation capacity by 2035, cutting bills and carbon on the way.
The lowest grades of land – 4 and 5 – are generally in upland areas, far away from access to the grid and often subject to development restrictions.
On Monday, a 50MW solar farm in Devon also received approval on appeal from Housing and Planning minister Lucy Frazer, one of the first to be backed by the Sunak administration.
The decision rejected unwarranted and unevidenced claims the project would be harm food security and that an adjoining battery storage facility would pose a hazard.
Chief executive of the trade association Solar Energy UK Chris Hewett said: “It will be a great relief to the solar industry to hear that that Thérèse Coffey supports existing planning rules, which have successfully encouraged development away from the best-quality agricultural land while recognising the critical need to expand solar farms in response to the climate and energy price crisis.
“This looks like a significant shift from the anti-solar rhetoric of her predecessor.”