19:26 Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)

May I echo my hon. Friend’s support for the development of photovoltaic facilities on brownfield sites? In my constituency, at the old RAF Wroughton site, the largest PV installation in Britain has just received approval from the local planning authority. It enjoys support from the local parish council and local residents, and we believe it will make a meaningful difference to local energy generation and be an important part of renewable energy capacity in this country.

Let me return to the proposal for a 300-acre solar panel farm in Foxearth and Liston as a case study for the Minister when he reflects on the planning regime for solar panels in rural locations—the subject of my Adjournment debate. A letter from the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) states :

I would like to end by thanking Braintree district councillors Julian Swift and Jo Beavis; the planning officers at Braintree district council; Nigel Harley; Clive Waite of the upper Stour valley renewable energy joint committee; and the residents of Foxearth, Liston, Pentlow, Belchamp St Paul and Belchamp Otten for their valuable input to my speech. I thank the Minister for taking the time to listen to the concerns of my constituents and I look forward to his response.

[Source]

19:40 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)

The policies in the national planning policy framework are clear that there is no excuse for putting solar farms in the wrong places. The framework is clear that applications for renewable energy developments, such as solar farms, should be approved only if the impact, including the impact on the landscape—the visual and the cumulative impact—is or can be made acceptable. That is a very high test. It should be approved only if the impact can be made acceptable. Where significant development is necessary on agricultural land, the national planning policy framework is equally clear that local planning authorities should seek to use areas of poorer quality in preference to that of a higher quality. Where land is designated at a relatively high grade it should not be preferred for the siting of such developments.

I am listening very carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying, and many of his points reflect the excellent advice given by the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) in his letter to me in October. The reality, however, is that when speaking to Braintree district councillors—notwithstanding that it is the highest grade agricultural land, grade 2, in Essex—they say that as long as a biodiversity requirement is met, they are still minded, because, unfortunately, of the current regulations, to give planning permission for at least the first 40 acres. To me and to many of my constituents, that is unacceptable.

Nevertheless, because we shared some of my hon. Friend’s concerns about how these policies were being applied, we issued further planning practice guidance on renewable and low-carbon energy. To ensure that these decisions reflected the environmental balance expected by the framework and that the views of local people were listened to, we published guidance last summer that made some things very clear. We reiterated that the need for renewable energy did not automatically override environmental protections and local communities’ planning concerns. The guidance made it clear that the deployment of large-scale farms could have a negative impact on the rural environment, particularly in undulating landscapes, and set out a number of factors that a local council would need to consider before making a determination.

We expect local authorities to encourage the effective use of previously developed land, and if a proposal involves greenfield land, the guidance clearly states that it should allow for continued agricultural use, but only if it has already met all the other environmental and landscape policy criteria that are set out in the framework and which are reiterated, underlined and expanded on in the new planning guidance. I and the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), believe that current policy and guidance gives every planning authority in the land the basis on which to take fully into account the landscape and agricultural quality of land.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has asked that question, because it is important that authorities across the land understand that when they make a decision that has policy support, in the national planning policy framework, and guidance support, in planning guidance, and if it is appealed, they have every right, if they are successful in resisting that appeal, to ask for their costs to be covered. They should feel confident in their decisions, where those decisions follow the policy that I have set out and which I believe is crystal clear. I should also add that it would be a brave planning officer or inspector who dismissed a letter from a Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change in the terms my hon. Friend suggested he had been advised they had to do.

[Source]