by Simon Panter
Across Britain’s patchwork fields, where wheat and barley have fed the nation for centuries, a new harvest looms: solar panels, sprawling over fertile land in the name of Labour’s Net Zero crusade. In Northamptonshire, villagers like those in Earls Barton, Easton Maudit and Bozeat fear the proposed Green Hill Solar Farm will devour 2,965 acres of their farmland, yet their objections, voiced to North Northamptonshire Council, carry no veto. These Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), approved not by local communities but by a Whitehall Secretary of State under the Planning Act 2008, are reshaping rural Britain. How can a Labour Party that champions social justice, equality and inclusive democracy justify paving over arable heartlands without a local vote? The answer reveals a betrayal of Labour’s principles, with the underreported threat to food security, amplified by Britain’s vulnerability to global supply chain shocks, exposing a cost that could leave the nation hungry.
The NSIP framework, established by the Planning Act 2008, fast-tracks projects deemed critical to national interests, from motorways to solar farms generating over 50 megawatts. Developers propose, the Planning Inspectorate examines and the Secretary of State decides, rendering local objections toothless. No referendum, no veto, just a nod from Whitehall. Green Hill, spanning nine sites across Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, exemplifies this, with locals decrying the loss of fields that sustain their communities. This centralised process clashes with Labour’s 2024 manifesto promise of a democracy “inclusive and accessible to everyone”, leaving rural communities, less politically connected than urban centres, to question whether Labour’s “fair society” excludes those who till the soil.
Labour’s technocratic push, seen in Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s approval of three major solar projects in July 2024, prioritises 2035 clean energy targets over local agency. This echoes the party’s historical tendency to favour state-driven goals, a pattern now risking rural alienation. Yet the cost extends beyond democracy to the very sustenance of Britain’s people. The stakes are dire in a world of fragile global supply chains. A 2025 CPRE report reveals that 59% of England’s 38 operational solar farms generating over 30 megawatts are built on productive farmland, with 827 hectares (2,043 acres) of Best and Most Versatile (BMV) land – Grades 1 to 3a, including 45 hectares of “excellent” Grade 1, already lost, an area equivalent to 1,300 football pitches. This translates to roughly 6,456 tonnes of wheat annually, using DEFRA’s 2023 yield of 7.8 tonnes per hectare (3.16 tonnes per acre), grain that could feed thousands, now buried under solar panels. With Britain reliant on imports for 40% of its food, this deepens vulnerability to global shocks, like the ongoing Ukraine war, which spiked wheat prices by 30%, or the 2023 Red Sea shipping disruptions, which delayed 12% of global trade. Developers chase profits on cheap, flat farmland. The public, especially low-income urban households spending 15% of their income on food, faces pricier loaves and the spectre of empty shelves. How does Labour’s vision of equality square with a policy that risks hunger for the poorest, reliant on imports from potentially unstable regions like Eastern Europe or North Africa?
In East Anglia and the East Midlands, Britain’s agricultural heartlands, projects like Green Hill threaten wheat fields that sustain millions, with Earls Barton locals warning of lost harvests. A 2025 University of Sheffield study suggests agrivoltaics, integrating solar panels with farming, could preserve land use. Yet it admits UK trials are lacking, with performance uncertain for wheat, a staple comprising 54% of UK cereal production, unlike maize or beans tested abroad. Rural communities, with median incomes 7% lower than urban ones, face economic and cultural devastation. As their concerns drown in Net Zero zeal, Labour’s policy betrays its pledge to uplift the marginalised.
The defence is pragmatic. NSIPs avoid delays, aligning with national climate goals. But pragmatism doesn’t erase the cost. Labour’s green ambition risks prioritising corporate developers over communities. Alternatives exist: the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s 2024 report identified 250,000 hectares of brownfield or degraded land suitable for renewables, yet fertile fields remain developers’ choice for cost savings. Why doesn’t Labour, so vocal about fairness, demand better?
Scotland’s community-owned wind farms, like those on the Isle of Lewis, show a path forward, boosting local support for renewables by 30%. Labour could champion such models, aligning green goals with democratic values. Instead, the NSIP process sidelines rural Britain, raising a question: can Labour’s Net Zero vision coexist with the equitable society it claims to pursue? As solar farms spread, the stakes – food security, rural livelihoods, national resilience – demand scrutiny. In a world of global supply chain chaos, sacrificing fields for panels could leave Britain not just with barren lands but with empty plates and broken trust.
This article originally appeared on the Rational Forum Substack. You can subscribe here.
“Yet the cost extends beyond democracy to the very sustenance of Britain’s people. The stakes are dire in a world of fragile global supply chains.”
…
“This translates to roughly 6,456 tonnes of wheat annually”
This is a ridiculously overwrought post. Britain harvests about 11 million tons of wheat a year.
Nick, that was a pathetic attempt at diversion, even by your low standards.
Yes, today’s efforts are small, but you and I both know that they eventually want to convert all of Britain’s energy to wind and solar. In the near future, much, much more land will be converted.
“much, much more”
Well, how much more? He’s saying that Britain has lost 0.06% of it’s wheat crop. Do you think it might get up to 0.1%? 0.2%? Will this endanger the very sustenance of the British people?
British people?
You are way behind the times, Nick.
OK, the exact quote was
“Yet the cost extends beyond democracy to the very sustenance of Britain’s people.”
Which democracy? Bear in mind one nation was denied an assembly.
Ask Simon Panter. I am quoting from this WUWT article.
But you latched on to it in an ignorant fashion.
Now that the UK economy is clearly tanking and in a big way, can you now explain to me how you interpret that as rapid growth?
Don’t duck it, there’s a good chap.
Why are you quoting for this (or any) article if you don’t know what they are talking about? You used a quote from the article, apparently to make a point, but when challenged your typical response is to deflect and avoid the question. “I have no idea what they’re talking about, I just cherry-picked a quote from the article.”
Nick’s goal is to distract and confuse.
Hard to say since you climinstas keep changing the goal.
When you add in electric heat, electric cars and what not, then add in batteries and the extra wind and solar needed to charge those batteries, and given the fact that the best places have already being used, so each additional unit will be that much less useful.
Somewhere between 50 and 100, for a start.
CO2 is .04% of the earth’s atmosphere. Will a trace increase endanger the entire planet?
/sarc
probably ALL of it! A small nation with a lot of people.
A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift, solvable problems.
Nick,
the real problem is that solar, as a generator is of no value.
While there is some validity for government approval of useful projects and limiting objections, for example necessary and essential projects, i.e. nuclear power stations, that does not apply to solar farms, pure subsidy farming.
Farming, in the U.K., is a difficult profession, hindered very much by government policy so it is understandable that farmers are willing to earn more money leasing their land. This should not be, the production of food is essential and farmers should be able to earn a sustainable living. It is hard enough with crops being dependent on good weather, without ill thought out government regulation.
Yes, I got surprising insights into Britain’s farming challenges just from watching the “Clarkson’s Farm” series.
As Jeremy admitted – if it wasn’t for his Netflix revenue, farming would send him bankrupt.
Who’d be a farmer in the UK?
That would take a special genre of masochist.
“The theory of comparative advantage, credited to David Ricardo, states that maximizing trade occurs when countries specialize in producing and exporting goods and services in which they have a lower opportunity cost. This specialization leads to increased total output and efficiency for all trading partners, allowing them to access a wider variety of goods at lower costs and ultimately improving overall living standards, even if one country is more productive in producing everything.
Infinitely more sustenance is derived from eating grain than could be derived from eating comparative advantage.
So “It’s only a little bit of freedom we’re losing. Be happy! Give away more freedom when the government wants it.”
That what you’re saying Nick. There’s a word for people like you.
The complaint is that farmers are freely choosing to lease some of their their land for solar panels. And someone wants to stop them, and deny them the income. Is this freedom?
So no voice for the local residents. That is, I guess, something that you approve of.
There’s a name for that type of politics.
Farmers have no say. Big Agriculture does.
It looks like Britain is going back to feudalism, taxing farmers out of their ancestral land. Labour are loving it, as probably are you and your ilk.
Locals don’t matter. Only the globalists matter.
There is loads of unproductive land not used for food production in the UK ie 31%, there is no need to put solar panels on food producing land.
Unless the intent is to destroy local production.
Farmers are free to choose ? Have you watched Clarkson’s farm and the government vendetta being waged against farmers ?
You would do well to consider that land is also a non-renewable resource that we can’t afford to squander ?
Solar farms are being built in the North of UK – which is clearly preposterous given how weak the sunshine is at those latitudes (but in 2023 had its feed in tariff hiked by another 36%).
Solar Power Auction Prices Raised By 30% • Watts Up With That?
Even under the weak UK sun, solar panels are degraded to 50% of their nameplate/original capacity inside just 11 or 12 years
At that, the solar farm becomes uneconomic (in reality they never were) so the solar farmers sell the panels on to unknowing, gullible/naive people as second hand “fresh from the farm”. As seen on eBay and elsewhere.
Then they build houses on the ‘brownfield’ site where the solar farm was – which was the original nefarious reason for the solar farms, to convert agricultural land into housing estates.
This thing is beyond monstrous – it is extraordinarily difficult to get planning permission to develop agricultural land for housing (in the UK) but simple if you are virtuous enough to install vast fields of solar panels whilst garnering vast government subsidies and guaranteed extortionate feed in tariffs Etc. Etc.
Once the site is cleared of solar panels (10 to 15 years) it becomes a “brownfield” site – no longer suited to agricultural production – and therefore planning permission to convert it to housing is easily forthcoming and the ‘mark-up’ on that land is off the scale.
‘Solar farmers’ might buy/coerce/steal off the original (cow, pig, sheep, wheat, beans whatever) farmer at say, £10,000 per acre. Not bad by any means for the UK
But 10 to 15 years later when it becomes a ‘brownfield’ site and 4 houses per acre can be built – it is worth a minimum of £400,000 per acre, often nudging beyond £500,000 if there’s a nice school and/or train-link nearby.
Yes, Warren Buffett belled the cat on solar & wind farms – without all the government’s tax breaks & subsidies, w & s make no financial sense.
But to global-governance ideologues, using taxpayers’ money to procure sovereign and titled land for “Agenda 30 nee-21” pursuits makes them drool & salivate.
Wow. your definition of “free choice” is wildly different from what most people would define as “free choice.”
The government is giving you a choice of death by hanging or death by beheading. Isn’t that wonderful?
And in Nick’s world you freely chose death as long as you had a choice, so what’s the problem?
You are, as usual, completely ignoring all the roadblocks that government puts up that influence people’s decisions.
You’re being pretty generous calling it “influence.” I would call it “force” or “coercion .”
It’s the principle of the thing. If no-one causes a ruckus about it now, then next year when it rises to 2000 hectares of farmland instead begin used by solar panels it’ll be a case of “Well you didn’t mind last year, so what’s different now?”
And yes, this is only a very small fraction of total yield. But at what point would you draw the line? 1%? 10%? 50%? Not that it matters, because the modus operandi of every government I’ve lived under is to draw a line and then completely brush it aside as soon as it becomes inconvenient.
“1%? 10%? 50%?”
No, it can’t get even to 1%. At present, solar provides about 5% of UK power, and 0.06% of the wheat crop is lost. Solar is not that competitive with wind, and probably won’t get past 25%. That could cost 0.3% of the wheat crop..
As usual, Nick totally ignores everything that doesn’t fit into the story he’s trying to sell.
Are you telling us that 100% of that alleged 5% is being produced on former farm land?
That 5% claim is not as straightforward as you want us to believe.
You are ignoring the fact that you climanistas want to electrify everything, so the base grows.
You are ignoring the fact that in order to get rid of fossil fuel, you then have to over build in order to charge the batteries. Not to mention room for the batteries themselves.
And to address your usual whine, yes I know that YOU don’t want to get rid of all fossil fuel plants. You want to keep them around so that they can be fired up for the many times when wind and solar fail. None of your fellow climate warriors want to do that.
As usual, Nick totally ignores everything that doesn’t fit into the story he’s trying to sell.
Are you telling us that 100% of that alleged 5% is being produced on former farm land?
That 5% claim is not as straightforward as you want us to believe.
You are ignoring the fact that you climanistas want to electrify everything, so the base grows.
You are ignoring the fact that in order to get rid of fossil fuel, you then have to over build in order to charge the batteries. Not to mention room for the batteries themselves.
And to address your usual whine, yes I know that YOU don’t want to get rid of all fossil fuel plants. You want to keep them around so that they can be fired up for the many times when wind and solar fail. (Also ignoring the problems with starting up fossil fuel plants rapidly.) None of your fellow climate warriors want to do that.
Many local people and councils do object to the proposed solar farms but Mad Ed just uses his powers to ignore them and give the go ahead
Agree with Nick – sensationalist article not putting the numbers in context.
From https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/cereal-and-oilseed-rape-production/cereal-and-oilseed-production-in-the-united-kingdom-2024
“The final 2024 UK wheat harvest is 11.1 million tonnes, a decrease of 20% on 2023. This is the smallest wheat harvest since 2020 when wet weather last affected autumn plantings. Area and yield were both below the five-year average, with area down by 11% and the yield down by 10% to 7.3 tonnes per hectare (t/ha). Production was down across all UK nations.”
What happened to the CO2 “greening”? Climate change massively impacts harvests (and planting). Yield down 10%. 2025 numbers not in yet but with this year’s drought – yet another year of extreme weather for farmers to deal with, not expecting yields to be high.
Yields are down at least partly due to environmentalist meddling placing restrictions on how land is used. The price of fertiliser went through the roof in 2020 and hasn’t recovered, which has a direct impact on yields as well. There’s also the record number of farm foreclosures that have happened in the last few years.
weather impacts yields. The weather we’ve had this year is not outside the normal range for this country and has been seen before within living memory, despite claims to the contrary.
Yes, modern fertilizers are the key element that enables the ag yields the world relies upon to keep us all adequately fed these days.
Curbing fertilizer use is a sure-fire way to ensure that the food volumes required in 2050 will fall a long way short.
This approach is so stupid, one could be forgiven for concluding that it must be part of a deliberate plan to NOT produce enough proper food to feed future generations of human beings.
“a deliberate plan to NOT produce enough proper food to feed future generations of human beings.”
I do believe you hit the nail on the head.
Oh, looks like you’ve finally got the ultimate defense of the green lobby! 🙂
6,456 tonnes of wheat approximates to 10,000 tonnes of CO2 taken from the atmosphere (not counting the biomass remaining in the soil). Every year. Given the only “benefit” of solar panels in the UK is CO2 reduction from displacement of gas-fired electricity generation, can anyone do the math on this?
Why is Labour Paving Over Britain’s Arable Heartlands Without Consulting Local People?
Because they know what people think…
After the US EPA rescinds the 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding, whatever will Mad Ed do? He will have to eat humble pie and then cancel his pet Net Zero by 2050 Plan.
He’ll carry on regardless
Nigel Farage and the Reforms will gain much power and come after Mad Ed, demand his resignation and banish him to a wind farm in Scotland.
… because it is by government decree.
People are not campaigning for a solar farm….
“Why is Labour Paving Over Britain’s Arable Heartlands Without Consulting Local People?’
“Elections have consequences”
You’re absolutely right. And the people who toil and farm the “Arable Heartlands” didn’t vote Labour. So they’re fair game.
They don’t care what people think, since they know better than you do, what you need.
Story tip
Labour drops plans to restrict LTNs in ‘secret war on motorists’
Ministers quiety ditch reforms that would have constrained local councils’ powers
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/16/labour-scraps-curbs-on-ltns-in-secret-war-on-motorists/
‘Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the golden future time.’
”Animal Farm” – George Orwell
[You] hearts of Oak
It is incredible how stupid some people can be, notwithstanding that no Professional Engineer of integrity would ever sign off on a system requiring such massively ridiculous expenditure and of such laughably idiotic inefficiency, bearing in mind all these bloody solar panels will generate hardly anything in winter and PRECISELY NOTHING at night.
The UK now has 20.99GW of installed capacity.
But over the last 12 months, that capacity has delivered . . . 1.92GW.
So that’s a load factor – efficiency – of . . . 9.15%.
And yet, the intention of the UK government is to increase solar installed capacity to 45GW, which will deliver . . . 4.12GW. And all this causing the destruction of some of the best farmland in the world.
This UTTER STUPIDITY makes me . . . scream with bloody anger!!
+42
But brains that are STOKEd with the type of stupidity I describe above will inevitably ululate about, amongst other catastrophisms, the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes, and hence, I bloody ask you, the desperate NEED to increase solar generation capacity – to SAVE THE PLANET!! – while completely ignoring this, from the GDFL (Geophysics Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, a department within the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, NOAA, dated 20th November 2024):
We conclude that the historical Atlantic hurricane data at this stage do not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced century-scale increase in: frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, or major hurricanes, or in the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes.
And I’m bloody sick of it.
All rational adults agree.
But, but, but Nick reckons that solar & wind are FREE, so all’s just peachy.
Isn’t he a bloody beauty!!
I wonder what it is that seems to block people’s brains from reaching glaringly obvious rational conclusions?!
For the vast majority, they perhaps don’t know or don’t care, besides they’re busy working and raising families and don’t have time for anything other than being fed BBC/Guardian-type bullsh#t.
But what about people who appear to possess some intelligence and education? What is it that over-rides their brains into a state of ridiculous terrified stupidity?!
Colin, my only amateur observational hypothesis I’m ever like to posit is –
“Rationality and ideology cannot occupy the same mind space at the same time”.
(Null hypotheses warmly welcomed of course. Because the long-proven scientific method informs us that that’s the only way this discipline actually works.
“Scientific Consensus is, to use a well-understood term – a crock of sh1t)
Another possibility is just plain old indoctrination, with the instruction that it can never be questioned.
Lie Bore is concreting over arable land for 3 main reasons.
1 They haven’t a clue what to do about anything.
2 They have no intention of doing anything a majority of the people want.
3 They are lefty woke, pro world order and want the UK to be governed by foreigners
You left out the high probability that forced labor in western China made much of that product supply chain, and with coal power plants in order to get to such dominance in the global supply chain. Meanwhile the UN and climate reporters stay well away from that area for any observations.
Says Nickonette – Let them eat electricity!
I’m baffled why the author appeals to Labour’s ‘principles’. They went out of the window 30-odd years ago with the coming of the Blair era.
I would suggest another major WUWT project along the lines of the temperature station siting project. It would be to trace and document the panels and supply chain of Chinese solar made polysilicon quartz in forced labor camps with coal fired power plants. Then publish the sites and projects using slave labor components. The current blinders on 1930s style ignorance of what’s going on is very destructive.
Why? Because slave labor components are cheap.
Grok says that Scotland uses only a couple of percent of its arable land (all definitions) for wind turbines. The best farm land is excluded from wind turbine use. One wonders why there are exclusions if wind turbines are innocuous and occupy only a few percent of the land?
Naturally, a farmer would like to have a regular, high income from growing electricity rather than growing barley. He’d be freed from worry about drought or cold, except as it may affect the wind velocity. The wind farm option does not appear to be open to such farmers, who might feel cheated of an easy, worry-free life. Who could blame them?
Scotland also uses non-arable, forested areas for wind farms, as much as 3-4% at present. Clear-cutting is necessary since, as any person who has walked in a forest knows, the wind is slowed dramatically. That is why trees are planted as wind breaks. Measured wind profiles over forests tell us the wind turbines should clear the ground by 100 meters. Then, only access roads to the wind turbines is required.
I pushed Grok to look ahead to Net Zero 2050. Reluctantly, Grok admitted that an order of magnitude increase in wind farms (WFs) is required just for NZ2050, but waffled on intangibles. Grok does not like to admit energy transition realities. Grok said improvements in wind turbines could make up for poorer sites. No, wind turbines are a relic technology, as is PV. No order of magnitude gain is possible, given physical realities and the Betz limit.
Then, WFs will consume 20% or more of farm land and 40% or more of forests. That is a whole different kettle of fish! Farm productivity declines sharply without hydrocarbons to make fertilizers and to run tractors, etc., witness Sri Lanka.
The boards and committees do not and cannot acknowledge reality contrary to their delusions.
I’m not a fan of wind power but “where wheat and barley have fed the nation for centuries,” might be a bit of an exaggeration of Scotland’s ability to feed itself circa 1850.
Very nice but the article misses the point that wind and solar don’t work. Why waste time, money and resources on developments that don’t work? Return crop land to crops and build fossil fuel and nuclear generators on ground other than crop land. We will have the food we need and the energy we need and we can get rid of crap load of government. It’s a win win.