Solar Farms and Battery Storage

I beg to move,

That this House has considered planning for solar farms and battery storage solutions.

May I say what a great pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley? This is the first time it has happened to me, and it may well be a less pleasant experience than I am anticipating, but let us hope it all goes according to plan.

Let me divert any suggestion that may arise during the debate that I am somehow anti-solar, anti-renewable or anti-environmentalist. On the contrary, I suspect that everyone in the Chamber is a passionate environmentalist. I went to the first COP, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, as a special adviser, and I have been on the Environmental Audit Committee ever since. I am passionate about the north and south poles, which I have visited often, and where we can see the effect of climate change, and in every way I would consider myself to be an environmentalist. I would not want my credentials to be lessened by my remarks this afternoon, and I am sure other right hon. and hon. Members around the room feel the same.

I am proud of the fact that we have a proud environmental record in Wiltshire. We declared a climate change emergency in February 2019, and we plan to make the county carbon-neutral by 2030. Renewables play an extremely important part in that, and I am proud of the contribution that we have already made with regards to solar. For example, at the former RAF Lyneham in my constituency, we have a 250 acre solar farm with 269,000 solar panels, providing 69.8 MW —enough energy to power 10,000 homes as well as the base itself. That is not a bad way to do it, but the point is that it is entirely invisible. It is on the base, it is on former Army land, it is within the wire and it is entirely invisible to anybody nearby. Equally, RAF Wroughton, which is nearby, has 150,000 solar panels on 170 acres. A number of similar ex-military sites are invisible to the passer-by and are making a huge contribution to renewable energy. By contrast, at Minety in my constituency, planners recently agreed to a solar farm with 166,000 panels on 271 acres of agricultural land despite massive local opposition, which seems to go against what is said in the national planning policy framework. I will come back to that in a second.

What seems to be happening in Wiltshire, Dorset and one or two counties in the west country is that the grid is full in Devon and Cornwall. It is no longer possible to get a link from a solar farm to the grid in Devon and Cornwall, and developers have moved north. I am told that the connections to the grid in Wiltshire are nearly full, but that gives me little satisfaction, because the technology is moving so fast that the situation may well change in time. Secondly, even if Wiltshire became exempt, as it were, from further solar farms, all we would then do is move the blister further north or east, and many Members present would find that their constituents were being targeted just as much as mine are.

Right now, we have a gigantic number of applications in my constituency for solar farms—I know of at least four. Many of them would feature battery storage units, which are horrible, industrialised containers that often take up an entire field. There are some safety risks attached to them, as they burst into flames from time to time, so they are quite dangerous. They are turning a rural area into an industrialised centre, which is really unacceptable.

My hon. Friend has mentioned the NPPF, which I understand is meant to be updated in July this year. Does he agree that there should be rigorous rules around planning permission for solar panels and that we should use commercial units for them first, instead of using agricultural land?

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, which I will come back to in one second. The NPPF is central to this, and when the Government come out with their update to it, it must include strict rules on solar farms.

We in Wiltshire are being targeted. I have huge sites at Derry Hill and at Leigh Delamere, and many sites have huge battery storage facilities attached to them. Something like 25 battery sites are currently being considered by Wiltshire Council. There is a proposal for a huge battery farm at Lea near Malmesbury. It is perfect, first-class agricultural land. I went to a public meeting in Lea the other day on the subject, and 250 people turned up in that tiny village—that must be more than the entire population of the village. That shows the strength of local feeling, but none the less the battery farm may go ahead—we will have to see.

I testify to my hon. Friend’s environmental credentials. He wrote the excellent book “Poles Apart”, which I have read, about the Arctic circle—in fact, I visited the North Pole with him some years ago. I completely agree that we need solar farms and sustainable energy and that we need to diversify our energy sources, but I also agree that we need to ensure that planning does not override the current use of agricultural land, nature reserves and sites of special scientific interest, which often happens with solar farms. I therefore agree that any review of the planning guidance needs to ensure that those other factors are fully taken into account, rather than being overridden by solar farms on their own.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am grateful to him for the plug. The book is only £10 and it is available in decent bookshops near you, or I could perhaps arrange for it to be sent directly. He is absolutely right: we must not allow the planning system to override good environmental and nature principles because of some need to have renewables.

This is not just happening in the west country; we are getting it in Hertfordshire. We have a number of applications for quite substantial areas of productive farmland. We are talking about 150 or 200 acres, and quite a few of these pieces of land are all in one area, which is causing a lot of concern. It is probably right, when we look at revising the planning framework, that we look at the balance between productive agricultural land and sustainable energy, because both are important. I will just mention Protect the Pelhams and the Bygrave Action Group, which asked me to make that point.

The action group will be reassured that my right hon. and learned Friend takes a keen interest in the matter.

Before I come back to the national planning policy framework, which must be central to this afternoon’s debate, I will touch briefly on battery storage solutions, which are springing up all over the place. They are absolutely hideous. There is a fire risk attached to them, and they do not make a single contribution towards renewables. All they do is store electricity that has been produced at a cheap time, when there is low demand overnight, instead of at an expensive time, such as during the day. In other words, they increase the electricity producer’s profits but do not reduce the amount of electricity used, even slightly. They do not increase the amount of renewable energy produced; they are merely a convenience for the developers. They are a hideous new development. Technology will soon overtake them, and we will be left with hundreds of acres of countryside with these vast industrial sites on them. They will then be redundant and the planners will turn around and say, “They are brownfield sites. Let’s put houses or factories on them”—on what was, until recently, farmland.

The hon. Gentleman is raising an important issue. In my constituency, one farmer diversified by putting in a solar farm—one that is acceptable because, as the hon. Gentleman said, it is not obtrusive and it is not seen. After substantial consultation, the local community agreed with it as well. As we look ahead to the need for green energy, and as we look to the war in Ukraine, it is clear that the demands on highly productive land will be greater than ever. Does there come a time when solar farms and battery installations have to take a backseat to food production?

The hon. Member makes a good point. Of course, food security will be central to our considerations as we go forward. He made an interesting point: he said the solar farm in his constituency was built with the enthusiasm of local people. That is, of course, how it should be. There will be places where local people say, “I am committed to environmentalism and renewables. I want to see a renewable farm near my village or in my town. I want to see it behind a high hedge,” and they will lay down certain conditions under which it can be put in. That is great. By contrast, when local people—such as the people of Lea, in the public meeting I mentioned a moment ago—are absolutely unanimous in their determination not to have one, they must be listened to. That becomes an important part of the consideration.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this important debate. Is there not a danger that we swap the drive towards energy security for food security? Should we not set a balancing target for food security in this country from the current 60% to, say, 75%, where it used to be? That would prevent planning consent being given for sites such as the one near Old Malton, in my constituency, which is 70% best and most versatile land. Does he agree that giving consent for such land is absolutely inappropriate, and that councils should take food security into account in their decisions?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great considerations that we are currently battling with is the question of food security. Post-Ukraine, or during Ukraine, we are facing a real crisis in food production in this country. Why we are taking perfectly usable agricultural land and covering it with vanity mirrors and industrial battery storage units, I simply cannot imagine. It is extraordinary.

Just yesterday, we had a debate in this Chamber on a similar subject—the question of housing in planning—and, to some extent, we are discussing the same thing. Developers should, of course, be encouraged to reuse brownfield sites in town centres, but, given the choice between a brownfield site in a town centre or a greenfield site in the countryside, they are going to go for the greenfield site. We therefore have to change the planning system to focus house building on previously used land. A little off the subject, Mr Paisley—thank you for not picking me up on that.

The hon. Gentleman is making a fascinating speech. Does he feel that there is a need to prioritise brownfield land and particularly to look at brownfield in urban areas, as well as in rural areas?

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. We have car parks that are good places to put overhead solar farms, as they do in many other parts of the world. Every factory that is built should have solar panels on the roof. Massive areas in town centres should have solar panels attached. However, those solutions cost developers quite a lot more money, and they are not going to do that if they can just buy a nice greenfield site and stick the solar farm out there. It is much easier for them to do that. That is why the planning system has to constrain what they do, so that they are forced to come back into our town centres and use the kind of solutions he describes.

We ought to move on to the central question, which is about planning. Wiltshire Council is being particularly targeted at the moment because it is being a little too cautious. The council is very concerned that, if it turns applications down, unless it can demonstrate that the application absolutely did not fall within the current planning guidance, the inspector will overturn that decision at appeal, and the council will then be faced with substantial barristers’ costs.

Wiltshire Council is saying, perfectly reasonably, “We need to be guaranteed that we are within planning law when turning down these applications.” That is why the detailed definition of planning law and the NPPF is incredibly important in order to give some comfort to councils such as Wiltshire Council when they say, “This is going to be turned down. Here’s why.” The wording of the NPPF should therefore be clear. I have been saying to my council that, at the moment, it is clear. Paragraph 155a of the NPPF says that local plans should provide a

“strategy for energy…while ensuring that adverse impacts are addressed…including cumulative landscape and visual impacts.”

The guidance says:

“It is for each local authority to determine a planning application to include the consideration of intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside, as well as whether the best quality land is being used for agricultural purposes. Large-scale solar farms can have a negative impact on the rural environment, particularly in undulating landscapes.”

There is not one inch of Wiltshire that is not undulating, so, if that were to be applied in detail, there would be no solar farms in the county of Wiltshire.

As has been said, guidance also states very clearly that solar farms should be focused on

“previously developed and non agricultural land…that is not of high environmental value”.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. The comments that we heard earlier from colleagues about the use of agricultural land is a particular concern in my constituency as we have a proposed large solar farm that is nationally significant infrastructure because of its size. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is it important for local communities to be at the heart of that decision-making and be consulted properly, so that they can ensure that these solar farms—which we are not opposed to in principle, but they must be in the right places—do not take away from things that we want to preserve?

My hon. Friend is right and I am grateful for his intervention. It must be done with local consent and enthusiasm. The notion that solar farms can be good for biodiversity is, of course, complete nonsense. No shepherd worth his salt would graze his sheep on a solar farm. The grass is low quality. I do not think there is one single solar farm in the west of England currently being grazed, and the notion that they could be is nonsensical. Equally, the notion that, somehow, wildflowers thrive on solar farms is simple nonsense; it is simply not true. There is not a single wildflower that I have ever seen on any of the solar farms that I have ever visited. Therefore, the notion, which the developers put forward, that solar farms are somehow biodiversity-friendly is absolute nonsense.

The heart of the problem is that Wiltshire Council, and probably many other councils too, interprets the nation policy framework very conservatively. For example, the NPPF seems to indicate that it thinks that grade 3a land should not have a solar farm on it, but that grade 3b land could do. It is not absolutely clear, but it seems to be moving in that direction. Anybody who knows anything about a farm will know that some of it will be grade 3a and some will be 3b; it is extremely hard to make out which is which. One field may be half 3a and half 3b. Therefore, what we should be saying is that all viable agricultural land should not be used for solar farms—full stop. Never mind grade 3a, 3b, 2 or 1: all agricultural land should be exempt, under planning law, from solar farms.

Equally, we ought to be making much more use of carve-outs for protected designations such as national parks and areas of outstanding national beauty. Most of my constituency is an AONB, and if AONBs were exempted, there would be no solar farms. We must take account of a landscape’s special characteristics, which we are not doing under the NPPF.

Councils also ought to be more ready to make the argument about the cumulative impact of solar farms. The NPPF seems to intimate that cumulative impact is allowable, but the planning inspector is unclear about that. We must be certain that the more solar farms there are in a particular place, the less likely it is that planning permission will be granted.

We must also develop arguments about food production as a legitimate economic consideration. Under the NPPF, if there is a legitimate economic consideration connected to a planning application, it will not go ahead. It is currently unclear whether food production is a legitimate economic consideration. Officers—and indeed, I think, officials in the Department—have said that it is quite hard to know whether or not agriculture could be classed as a legitimate economic consideration. I think that it definitely should be.

I will see who else is bobbing and feels worthy to follow Mr James Gray today, after his Sermon on the Mount. Members themselves can see who is bobbing. I want to call the Opposition spokesman at around 5.10 pm, so we are talking about four to five minutes each for each contribution; I do not want to set a formal time limit.

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Paisley, and it is a pleasure to serve under you as Chairman.

I thank the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) for securing this debate and I obviously thank Mr Speaker for granting it. It is very timely, certainly for me and for my constituency, because we, too, have an application for a battery energy storage system in an area called the Duckery—hon. Members can imagine what it is like—in Chapel Lane. It is a beautiful part of Walsall South and has a large amount of green belt around it, with St Margaret’s Church, Great Barr, very nearby. Anesco Ltd put in a planning application on 6 December 2021: I always worry about applications that go in just before Christmas, which makes it really difficult for local residents to be consulted.

The hon. Member is absolutely right—he does have green credentials. I have served on the Environmental Audit Committee with him. In fact, I seem to remember he was arranging an expedition to the south pole. Sadly, I will not be able to take part because I am not on the Committee anymore, but I might join him anyway. Maybe another book will come out of that.

I am really pleased that the hon. Gentleman focused on the national planning policy framework, because that is key, as it says the green belt should be protected. That is why it is concerning that this battery energy storage system is going to be placed on green-belt land. The Black Country core strategy says that green-belt land should be protected, and the Walsall site allocation document reaffirms that. In the main Chamber at the moment, they are discussing the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. Notes on the Bill state that green-belt land will be made greener. We might think that means it will be protected, but we cannot be sure that will happen, which is why it is important the Minister gives us confirmation that green-belt land will be protected.