Ed Miliband has ignored the objections of NIMBYs by giving the green-light to the construction of Britain’s biggest solar farm.
On Wednesday, the government gave approval to the Springwell Solar Farm in Lincolnshire, which will have a capacity of 800 megawatts, enough to power some 180,000 homes a year.
The development, proposed by EDF and Luminous Energy, will see seven square miles of farmland covered in solar panels, an area 10 times greater than London’s Hyde Park.
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Springwell is the 25th large solar farm approved by Labour since they came into power in 2024.
The size of the project had sparked concerns among local residents, with the development set to affect 10 local villages.
They claimed the loss of prime farmland and the effect on communities was too high a price to pay for the green energy the project would provide, the Telegraph reports.
Local politicians voiced concerns the project would “change the very nature of Lincolnshire,” whilst activists went as far to compare it to Chernobyl.
Last year, Marc Williams, from the Springwell Solar Farm Action Group, told Lincolnshire Live “everyone’s against it, apart from those who will profit.”
He added: “We wouldn’t object to plans for a couple of hundred acres but this is vast. It will be an industrialised complex like Chernobyl.”
However, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has used government planning powers that allow ministers to overrule communities when a project is deemed “nationally significant”.
In a post on X, Miliband said: “We need as much clean power as possible to get us off the fossil fuel rollercoaster, to give us energy sovereignty and abundance. Decisions like these are vital for our energy security.”
Ministers have said the solar farm will boost supplies of “home-grown” electricity after the Iran war had “exposed the cost of relying on fossil fuel markets Britain does not control”.
Michael Shanks, the energy minister, said: “We are driving further and faster for clean home-grown power that we control to protect the British people and bring down bills for good.
“It is crucial we learn the lessons of the conflict in the Middle East – solar is one of the cheapest forms of power available and is how we get off the roller-coaster of international fossil fuel markets and secure our own energy independence.”
In the wake of the conflict in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Miliband has doubled down on efforts to achieve net zero in the UK.
Ever since coming into government in 2024, Labour has vowed to ‘build, baby, build’ and insister it will push through green energy projects even in cases of local opposition.