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Liberal Democrat MP Critical Of Some Solar Farms In Constituency

We believe it is important to provide a balanced view of solar power in the UK so we thought you may find it interesting to hear of the views of an MP about some solar farm developments in his constituency.

Jeremy Browne
(image credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

Jeremy Browne is the Liberal Democrat MP for Taunton Deane. He has made his feelings known whilst providing support to the local community who are against a proposed solar farm that would be sited on 20.6 hectares of agricultural land in Hele that is situated close to Bradford on Tone. The solar farm, if approved, would have capacity of 9.5MW. MS Power is the developer.

He felt that such developments are a huge desecration of the natural environment and questioned whether they could be called “farms” when in fact it is agricultural land being industrialised. He also felt that they looked ugly as the solar panels were surrounded by fences and there were CCTV cameras on site. Should planning permission be granted there would be a permanent loss of countryside. He did not feel that local council planners should feel pressured into granting permission to solar panel developers.

However, he did make it clear that he was in support of solar power being used, in particular on industrial properties and also on certain new housing developments. His issue appears to be with solar farms being installed on delightful agricultural land.

It has to be said that he is not alone in his view amongst MPs as a number have made their feelings known that they are concerned at the number of solar farms being built in rural locations. We have previously commented on Greg Barker’s (Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change) recent guidance given to local councils to place greater weight on the views of local communities.

We would very much welcome the views of our readers on Mr Browne’s thoughts.

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