(Mike Page / SWNS)
An English county is facing a “wall” of solar farms covering 12,000 acres, an MP has warned.
Mid Norfolk Conservative MP George Freeman convened and chaired a ‘solar summit’ on Friday (4/9) – bringing together local representatives, council officials and MPs in response to a spate of solar farm applications.
A the meeting, the MP said he had calculated that, if approved, the farms proposed in Norfolk would take up 12,000 acres of space.
He said: “I was adding up the acreage and there’s about seven and a half thousand in west Norfolk and five or six thousand in south Norfolk, so that’s about 12,000 acres.
“That’s 250 Wembley stadiums and the size of the Norwich City Council area.”
Mr Freeman MP continued: “This is going to be a wall of solar infrastructure across the A47. This is big.
“It’s my concern that, at the moment, away from the villages who are dealing with it, people are not aware of what this will mean for the whole county.”
Photographs taken earlier this year show progress on a major 49.9MW solar farm being built at Bloy’s Grove, in Norfolk, by EDF Renewable.
The plans were approved in June 2022 by South Norfolk Council’s planning committee amid opposition.
Network Rail struck a deal with the operator for the electricity generated to power stations, offices and depots across the country.
And another aerial photo taken this year shows a solar farm on the former RAF Coltishall base, which began operation in 2015.
Planning inspectors in the county have recently begun considering proposals for the 2,800-acre Droves Solar Farm by developer Island Green Power.
The firm says the farm would generate enough electricity to power around 115,000 homes annually.
The firm has also proposed another scheme – known as East Pye Solar – which it also says could power around 115,000 homes.
While developers say the schemes will generate clean energy to power hundreds of thousands of homes, critics say valuable farmland will be lost and the countryside ruined.
Because the proposals are deemed by the government to be Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, they are not being considered by local decision-makers.
South West Norfolk Labour MP Terry Jermy said: “I think the government needs to do far more to recognise the cumulative impact.
“One of the reasons we are seeing so many at the moment is that, at some point, the rules will change and there will be much stricter policies on developers in terms of community funds and transport.
“But, in that vacuum, communities are going to suffer.”
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