Representation by Brett Walsh
- Date submitted
- 14 February 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
We have a significant food security challenge in this country (exacerbated by the war in Ukraine) now where 50% of UK food consumption is already imported from overseas. With a cost-of-living crisis, rising inflation and the negative carbon footprint associated with such a high level of food imports there is a pressing need to preserve farmland to produce more of what we eat. Effectively, taking farmland out of food production altogether to provide solar capacity when there are plenty of alternative brownfield and non-agricultural sites for solar, is massively self-defeating. There are 600,000 acres of south-facing space on the roofs of warehouses, factories, office blocks and other industrial buildings in this country. Utilising all of it would provide 50% of all the UK’s energy demands according to British Research Establishment research (source: BRE (2016) Solar PV on commercial buildings: a guide for owners and developers, K.Arora, J.Roper and G.Hartnell). A report in the UK by the Environmental Audit Committee 2019 warns ‘that environmental change and an over-reliance on imported produce will have major impacts on the country’s food systems, affecting its food security and ability to deliver healthy, sustainably produced diets’. The UK Food Security Report (Theme 2, UK Food Supply Sources, Dec 2021) states that ‘40% of UK’s food is currently imported from overseas’. A report by Dept for Environment Food & Rural Affaires in Dec 2021 indicates ‘we import 46% fresh vegetables and 84% fresh fruit.’ Clearly, we must do everything possible to reduce this high level of reliance on imports. Given rising inflation and the rising cost of food I object to siting any solar park on agricultural land (when there are clear alternatives locally) at the expense of increasing farming jobs and increasing farming output to support the need to strengthen not deplete national food security. Alternative brownfield sites and warehouse roofs exist locally. As mentioned, there are 600,000 acres of south-facing space on the roofs of warehouses, factories, office blocks and other industrial buildings in this country. CPRE and the Building Research Establishment have published several articles making this point and advising how it can best be achieved. [Redacted] Indeed, the Dept for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is already considering other alternatives using new emerging technologies that would supersede the PV panels proposed on farmland. (Space based solar power: de-risking the pathway to net zero (Sept 2021, Dept for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy). New technology will undoubtedly replace PV panels, which is already old technology, within a decade or sooner rendering the development obsolete in the near term. Food security and the needs of future generations is not a trivial matter when plenty of brownfield alternatives exist for solar alongside meeting energy security.