Campaign group Halt fundraising for legal action after 190MW Helios given go-ahead by Energy Section
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Ed Miliband is facing a High Court challenge from a campaign group opposed to one of Britain’s largest solar farms.
The 190MW Helios Solar Farm, near Selby, North Yorkshire, was granted permission by the Energy Secretary last month despite residents’ concerns about the industrialisation of the rural area.
Once built by the developer Enso Energy, the 1,175-acre site would surpass Cleve Hill Solar Park, Britain’s current largest solar farm at 900 acres.
The campaign group, Halt (Halt All Large Transmission/Solar Farms), has begun fundraising after it received legal advice that suggested there were “serious and arguable legal flaws” in the planning decision.
Any legal challenge to the Helios Solar Farm must be brought in the High Court within six weeks of Mr Miliband’s Dec 3 approval of the site, west of the village of Camblesforth, near Selby.
If the group meets its funding threshold, its legal challenge will focus on whether national policy regarding the cumulative impacts of energy infrastructure was properly applied before the Energy Secretary granted approval, according to local paper, The Press.
Byron Ward, 40, who owns the nearby 17th-century wedding venue Camblesforth Hall with his wife, said residents had already suffered enough, with disruption from two separate 50MW solar sites being built to the north and the south of the village, as well as renewable projects related to nearby Draw power station.
He told The Telegraph: “Despite a lot of opposition towards the project and Mr Miliband, or Ed Milliwatt as I call him, they’ve just given it the green light on prime agricultural land.
“But we have had legal advice on this from a solicitor, and we don’t think that they have reviewed the cumulative impact of the project at all.
“Even if it doesn’t necessarily stop it, which it might not, our hope is that it will delay it long enough until there is a change of Government, that might put a line through a lot of this net zero stuff.”
Mr Ward confirmed that around half the £15,000 for the judicial review had been raised so far.
He continued: “It’s great land, and you get a lot of deer, barn owls, bats, loads of birds of prey, all sorts.
“There’s also ancient woodland and paths down there, a lot of people use it for recreation, horse riders and walking groups go on around there. The solar farm’s going to take all that away.”
“And solar energy is rubbish. It doesn’t work in winter when we need most of our energy… Offshore wind does work; it’s proven to work.
“Why are we taking all this decent farmland across the country and putting solar panels on there, which don’t even work in winter when we need it. It’s absolutely bonkers.
“We’re all paying for it; it’s making all of our energy bills go up, and they’ll keep going up the more that we do it. We’re absolutely lunatics.”
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Mr Ward added that if the full £15,000 was not raised, all donations would be refunded to contributors, and no funds would be used for campaigning or administration costs.
Enso Energy said the site would provide enough energy to power 47,500 homes.
In December, Martin McCluskey, the energy minister who granted approval for the site on behalf of Mr Miliband, said: “Families in Yorkshire have seen their energy bills go through the roof as a result of our exposure to volatile gas prices.
“The only way to make British people better off in the long-term is by securing clean, homegrown power that we control.
“Giving the green light to the Helios Solar Farm is another step forward in our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower, creating jobs, driving economic growth and protecting family finances.”
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero was contacted for further comment.
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