Loss of Prime Agricultural Land
Worrying statistics.

  • We currently import 40% of our food and this figure is increasing.

  • Ukraine and Russia produce over 35% of the world's wheat exports.

  • Bioenergy crops and solar farms have accounted for a 3.3% loss of arable land in the last year alone - future predictions are for a further 6.5% loss.

The Woolpots application threatens 128 acres of agricultural land. 70% of the land is classified as 'Best Most Versatile' (BMV) which is protected under the planning rules. All the rest is 3b i.e. good to moderate - there is no grade 4 or 5 land.



In a debate in Parliament on 9 March 2022 on the subject of where large solar farms should be located, Government Minister, George Freeman, reassured MPs that:
"Planning guidance is … clear that the effective use of land should be prioritised by focusing large-scale solar farms on previously developed and non-greenfield land. It seeks to minimise the impact on the best and most versatile agricultural land. It requires developers to justify using any such land and to design their projects to avoid, mitigate and, where necessary, compensate for impacts".

Such loss is also likely to be permanent, not temporary.

Lightrock seeks to make much of the fact that the solar farm is 'temporary' as the application is for 40 years and it claims the land could be restored to agricultural use at the end of this period. However, this is actually unlikely to happen for various reasons:

  • Damage to the soil caused by the intense construction phase and the positioning of the infrastructure (of which there is a significantly higher amount in Woolpots than in the average solar farm) and ongoing maintenance is likely to be irreversible - which is the main reason why the Welsh Government has recently rejected an application for a major solar farm on BMV land.

  • Local authorities have difficulties enforcing conditions relating to restoration of sites at end of permitted period (or earlier) due to inevitable 'disappearance' of original applicant company and/or on-sale by the original developer (in this case EcoNergy) and the limited evidence available to date suggests that in practice former solar farm sites are normally deemed to be 'brownfield'" and used for housing or other non-agricultural use.

‘It is currently unclear as to what impact the solar panels may have on the soil properties such as carbon storage, structure, and biodiversity. For example, because of changes in shading; temperature changes; preferential flow pathways; micro-climate; and vegetation growth caused by the panels. Therefore, it is unknown what the overall impact (positive or negative) of a temporary Solar development will have on soil health.’
Natural England response to a Freedom of Information Request - September 2023

Food Security - we cannot afford to lose more farmland for 40 years

Food security was rapidly becoming a national priority even before the tragic events in the Ukraine brought this issue to everyone's attention. In a report on Food Security in December 2021, the Government noted that "climate change impacts are likely to have a negative effect on the proportion of high-grade arable farmland available in the UK" and that the UK's resilience in the face of threats like the pandemic and the Ukraine war was partly ensured through "strong domestic production from the UK's productive agriculture and food manufacturing sectors".
The Government has also introduced the Sustainable Farming Initiative designed to ensure that "farmers in England can sustainably produce healthy food profitably without subsidy, whilst taking steps to improve the environment, improve animal health and welfare and reduce carbon emissions". This will require less intensive farming across a larger area of land to generate the same volume of crops. So, this is not the time to be allowing opportunistic developers to gobble up good farmland so they can exploit high energy prices. Energy security and reducing energy prices are, of course, equally important for the country but, while there are far more other options for renewables within Hambleton and North Yorkshire, good farmland is a finite resource.