Solar Energy, the global hunt for profits, farmers, communities. A two-part exploration and explanation.
“It isn’t always true that a critical end justifies desperate means.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich
PART ONE
STOP LIME DOWN SOLAR FARM, NEAR SHERSTON
A couple of years ago in Voice for Arran (Issue 119, February 2021, Issue 127 October 2021*), I wrote about private equity companies, carbon credits and buying up retiring farmers’ land in Dumfries and Galloway to “grow trees” so they could sell carbon credits on what had been very productive food growing land. Since then, the value of carbon offsets market has plummeted after a series of scientific and media investigations revealed many offsetting schemes did nothing to mitigate biodiversity loss and many planted young trees died of drought or blew down in the ferocious winter gales!
Now, I have discovered the “new Gold” for landowners is large solar panel farms, covering thousands of acres in England. We had travelled to Wiltshire, where I was born, earlier this month and suddenly began to see signs all around Wiltshire STOP LIME DOWN. Again, Private Equity Companies are involved, frequently based in overseas tax havens. We made some enquiries and what we discovered made me wonder about ecology, food, profit, communities and who is backing this recent phenomenon of huge solar farms across the flat lands, across much good growing land of the Cotswolds, the Somerset Levels, and so on.
CPRE Wiltshire (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England) fears that much of Wiltshire’s landscape will be ruined and ultimately turned into semi-industrial use with proposals for many more solar farm developments that will add to the existing areas already converted to this form of energy generation. Solar farm applications appear to be dealt with on an ad hoc basis and restricted to one driver, a convenient electricity grid connection. There does not appear to be an overall plan for the spatial distribution of renewable energy capacity in the county. Yet this is all about complexity of ecosystems, farming, communities, history and employment. As more solar farm applications are approved there is an increasing impact on the nature of the county’s landscape, the visual aspects, communities and in particular the combined effect arising from the local concentration of several solar farms. Making this worse, many sites incorporate battery storage facilities, which gives them an industrial appearance totally out of keeping with the local countryside.
I am in favour of green energy, reducing our carbon footprint as a nation, but surely insulation of homes, solar on roofs is preferable to covering good agricultural areas in solar panels where profit is for large landlords, large estates and off shore companies? Where are tenant farmers and village communities in this? Stop Lime Down is fighting for their farming, their communities, history.
See: https://stoplimedown.com/
So, I went on the hunt for facts on food security, grades of agricultural land, and actually how much food does the UK import and from where? If we are to cover vast tracts of good, productive agricultural land to “reduce our carbon footprints on oil and gas”, just how much more of those energy commodities will be consumed for transportation further from across the seas to carry cereals etc to keep the UK fed? But equally important what about the local communities that are surrounded by solar panels, fenced in, with surveillance, so their sense of place, the beauty of their landscapes is reduced and degraded. Landlords, and larger estates will do well for 40 years, but not the tenant farmers, who lose some or most of their productive tenanted land for 40 years too, with a widow’s dime in compensation. No choice!
The greater second part of this review is about British Agriculture, and Government policies on solar farms but this first important part is about communities. Real villagers, tenant farmers, visitors who come to explore historic villages, whether that is in Wiltshire, Somerset or Norfolk, those are our rural areas ripe for picking off for solar farms in the global hunt for profits in the countryside. We felt the stress of those who love and work in these areas of Wiltshire. We all know we need renewable energy, and we need to reduce our own dependence on fossil fuels, wear more sweaters in the winter, stop buying huge SUVs and stop keep flying everywhere. Government informs us we have to generate more renewable energy, whilst the big oil companies get UK tax breaks and airlines similar tax breaks on fuels. Capitalism sees opportunities to maximise profit, rather as the water companies still do, even as they load their companies with debt. But these profit generators for the few often result in loss for communities, ecosystems, and landscapes.
Walking around the villages of North Wiltshire, and looking at the proposal for a 2,000 acre photovoltaic project in Wiltshire on some excellent farm land, beautiful landscapes, villages and historic areas the issues this project raises go far beyond the local, touching on much bigger questions of economics, politics, and environment. But most important is local democracy. Who has the power here? Plenty of reports by consultants paid for by the developers saying it will not matter to food security, ecosystems etc. But what about the communities? That SENSE OF PLACE, sense of history, farming, community. The vistas as you drive to the village, of Chippenham, through the Cotswolds. Perhaps the cost to government of insulating home, solar panels on roofs will be more costly initially and borne by the UK government, and taxpayers but over the next 40 years, the repayment in warmer homes and sense of wellbeing will produce many positives for the communities; both saving just as much in carbon emissions as these schemes will produce in power. The country folk are not a bunch of NIMBYs. They are thoughtful, environmentally-conscious people. Like me, they agree that we need renewables, but in the right forms, the right amounts, and the right places. They look after the fabric of their countryside. They protect SSSIs and AONB’s. Instead for 40 years, the time expected this solar farm will operate, producing huge profits for landowners, estates and private equity, energy for the consumer will stay expensive and their countryside will be blighted, and many farmers will suffer hardship. What is needed is a regulatory system that requires proper taxation on these companies and estates, to ensure the wider UK community also received benefits, be it in taxes raised, or more government funded energy saving and producing schemes. There are compensatory measures to be gained but seemingly are being ignored at present. Weedkillers should for example be prohibited and instead solar parks should be designed to manage natural plant growth encouraging biodiversity. Field margins should be planted to encourage wildlife corridors. Grazing could be encouraged.
“Further, research into Lime Down Solar Park Ltd shows that it is owned by Island Green Power, an offshore company registered in the tax haven of Bermuda. To me, it looks like this project is motivated less by environmental concern, and more by raw profit. The English countryside is being exploited for financial gain – a corporate wolf dressed up in green clothing.” (Quote from Roz Savage MP Malmesbury. blog) One of the big estates, the Badminton Estate with the Duke of Beaufort is backing the plan and clearly will be in line for big profits, unlike the tenants on his land.
At the initial consultation there were numerous protests opposing the project, which would stretch across two thousand acres of farmland to the north of the M4, southwest of Malmesbury. An underground cable would connect the site to the national grid at Melksham substation approximately 20 kilometres away.
The developers say that Lime Down Solar Park could deliver up to 500 megawatts of renewable energy, enough to power over 115,000 homes annually. The update comes after the new energy secretary Ed Miliband approved a 2,500-acre controversial solar development in East Anglia earlier in July. Approving the scheme, Mr Miliband, said solar power was “crucial to achieving net zero”. Newly-elected Malmesbury MP Roz Savage wrote last week that she was “reaching out to the Minister about Lime Down. The massive solar development in East Anglia was approved in the face of strong cross-party and local community opposition,” she said.
Opposition to these developments suggest that communities are not being convinced that such projects are the way to change our approach to energy sourcing. Engagement and clear benefit need to be the selling point and not opaque investors happy to take the money once their scheme is approved
THE SOMERSET LEVELS
It is not just on the Cotswolds that this is happening. Should rural land be used to produce food or energy? It is a question that divides farmers nationwide, and is being debated on the Somerset Levels. On ancient grazing pastures steel silicon solar panels are being installed, taking thousands of acres of farmland out of food production. Another most beautiful area in the UK. Every week, Sam Small and her family turn down thousands of pounds of guaranteed income. They farm 400 acres on the Somerset Levels, five miles west of Glastonbury. They could earn a healthy income from that solar power. “We get plenty of emails saying, ‘Make a thousand pounds an acre from your land!’ They’re everywhere now.”
But Mrs Small just laughs at the idea. “Very tempting,” she smiles, “but 10% of our land will also feed these cows. You have to look at the bigger picture. “We produce nearly two million litres of milk a year, and that is what we intend to carry on doing.”
While some farmers see solar as offering financial stability, others fear the loss of the land that feeds us. “We’re losing so much farmland,” said Hugh Williams of Somerset CPRE “No-one talks about the carbon footprint of the 40% we import. We’ve had food prices through the roof, we don’t seem to have learned the lessons of relying on food imports. And we keep taking farmland away. Why?” That campaign was successful. In May Somerset Council rejected the solar park proposal, citing a “failure to explore lower quality agricultural land” among its reasons. But campaigners expect the developers to appeal.
See: https://www.soslevels.co.uk
Measurements. Just in case you are confused!
Hectare, unit of area in the metric system equal to 100 ares, or 10,000 square metres, and the equivalent of 2.471 acres in the British Imperial System. The hectare is a unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, 10,000 square metres (10,000 m2). Acre, unit of land measurement in the British Imperial and United States Customary systems, equal to 43.560 square feet or 4,840 square yards. One acre is equivalent to 0.4047 hectare (4,047 square metres).
Sally Campbell
August 2024
*Note from Editor: Back editions of Voice for Arran, up to January 2024, are currently offline while we are working on some maintenance issues. We hope to resolve this situation and have the full archive back online in the near future.
