On Sunday, June 8th, Richard joined almost 300 local residents concerned about plans to build a 1,900 acre East Park Solar Farm which will be a massive blight on the countryside of North Bedfordshire and sprawls over the border into Huntingdonshire.
Richard Fuller MP said;
On Sunday I joined almost 300 local residents to walk just a small portion of the land that will be covered by solar panels if East Park Energy get approval for their proposed 1,900 acre solar farm.
If it goes ahead, this beautiful countryside and agricultural land will be lost for a generation or more and the numbers simply don't stack up for taxpayers. The UK has been deemed the second worse country in the whole world for efficiency of solar generation but somehow, governments have created a pricing structure that makes it hugely attractive to investors to invest, and for farmers not to farm.
We have enormous untapped acreage on warehouse roofs that should be exploited before carpeting our countryside with glass. Most of the rest of Europe has a rooftop first strategy to solar so the UK is very much an outlier with our perverse attraction to citing panels on prime land.
Of the 1,900 acres that the East Park Energy proposal would cover with solar panels, 74% of this is classed as Best and Most Versatile (BMV) Agricultural Land. Destroying BMV land makes no sense given the enormous untapped acreage on the numerous warehouse roofs that line the A1 and A421 in my constituency. For years I have been advocating for the use of rooftops for solar energy, and I will continue to push for a halt on massive ground installations. As a fully signed up CPRE Rooftop Solar Champion, I believe there must be a far greater focus on utilising the rooftops of warehouses, supermarkets, and car parks as places to harness this form of energy.
You can read more about Richard's views on solar at https://www.richardfuller.co.uk/campaigns/solar-farms
