Unrestricted Solar Sprawl Set to Devastate Cherished Cotswold Countryside

Lives in a quiet rural community in North Wiltshire has been thrown into disarray by a proposal to disfigure the area’s countryside with a 2000-acre, 500MW solar plant. 

The scheme’s developer is Island Green Power (IGP), an opaque, Bermuda-registered business with its head office in London. 

IGP is chaired by former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, whose CV was tarnished by allegations that he had failed to “truthfully account” for money deposited in his bank account when he was Finance Minister (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/22/bertie-ahern-mahon-tribunal)

Murkier still, the developer is 50% owned by Macquarie Asset Management, widely reported to have played a key part in pushing Thames Water to the brink of collapse by loading it up with unsustainable debt. 

The area targeted by IGP sits alongside the Roman built Fosse Way, one of the oldest rights of way in the world, and the historical villages of North Wiltshire scattered between the market towns of Tetbury, Malmesbury and Chippenham. This part of the country is celebrated for its 17th century listed buildings, and is surrounded by Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The village of Sherston, situated on the edge of the proposed plant, has been frequently listed in The Times’ guide to Britain’s best villages. 

Contrary to some of the pledges laid out in IGP’s glossy promotional material, the developers behind the misleadingly-named Lime Down Solar project are neither motivated by a desire to protect the planet from the ravages of climate change, nor by an urge to provide generous ‘community benefits’ for the people directly affected by their plans. 

Their objective is to generate short-term profits and tax efficiencies, which they aim to achieve by preying on horribly misinformed landowners driven by greed over any sense of societal responsibility or loyalty to their local area. Each of the nine who have signed up to the scheme will receive at least £1,000/acre per year, index-linked, for the land they hand over to the consortium in lease agreements of at least 20 years.

Guidelines for solar site location from British and European governments alike focus on appropriately sized sites on brownfield land, former industrial sites and warehouse rooftops, all in close proximity to grid substations. The Lime Down project meets none of these criteria.  Seven times the size of the largest solar farm currently operating in the UK (the 72MW Shotwick solar park), it is to be sited on greenfield land almost 30 miles from the Melksham substation.

This is not a NIMBY argument. It is a stark warning which should be heeded throughout Britain that developers are lining up to disfigure their communities with inappropriate, outsized projects. These threaten to take countryside not just from local families, walkers, riders and tourists, but also from thriving ecosystems that have been safeguarded for generations.

Very few good decisions are made at the behest of disgruntled farmers or predatory offshore conglomerates. While the yield on farmland is the root cause of the problem, the answer shouldn’t be to destroy the local environment to generate more palatable financial returns.  

Opportunists such as Macquarie are not only looking to exploit the 50% collapse over the last year in the prices of manufactured solar panels, many of which are allegedly built using forced labour in China, which is in flagrant violation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They are also prepared to use compulsory purchase options (CPOs) in their licence application, whereby land acquisitions are likely to be materially below market values. Unsurprisingly, property and land prices in the local area have already fallen significantly. 

As a plant with an output in excess of 50MW, Lime Down is classified as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP). This means that consent for its construction and operation will be made at a government rather than a local level. As MP Alicia Kears has said, bypassing the will of the people most severely impacted by giant solar farms has created an unfair “loophole” which gags local people and runs counter to the Conservative mantra of “community ownership and pride of place”. In other words, it undermines democracy.

Note that this is a government which is supposedly focused on conserving food production in the fields of the UK. As recently as 26th March 2024, it released details under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) which will limit the amount of land farmers can take out of productive actions. Under the changes, SFI applicants will only be able to put 25% of their land that take land out of direct food production.  

Tracy Ward, the Duke of Beaufort’s ex-wife, is among those objecting to the Lime Down scheme, which is currently in the so-called consultation stage. “I totally oppose all large-scale solar parks,” she said. “Solar panels should be on roofs, along motorways, or industrial sites. Land should be for growing food, not profits for a few landowners, manufacturers and investors.” Claiming it “will destroy the area for local walkers and riders, tourists and biodiversity”, she added: “Be careful what the climate change fear-mongering will lull us into accepting.”

Matt Ridley in the The Telegraph agrees. He wrote recently that “planning guidance on solar farms needs to change fast to stop these duke-lucrative, subsidised eyesores gobbling up more of our green and pleasant land.”

Equally striking opposition to large-scale solar plants has also come from members of the public. In little over a fortnight since details of the Lime Down proposals were announced, the number of signatories to a petition calling for the prohibition of mega solar facilities in excess of 50MW has leapt from under 3000 to over 9000 – and counting. If you haven’t already signed the petition, please do so.

Even if this doesn’t directly affect you, one day it might. This is a feeding frenzy of predatory investment banks taking away our beautiful countryside for profit and personal gain, under the illusion that it is somehow benefiting the planet. This ought to be stopped; or curtailed at least.

Hopefully, you will see from a moral point of view, that this is devastation to farming in the area, property value and damage to the environment, will encourage you to sign the petition and protect our ever dwindling landscape.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/651262