Fears of a solar farm free-for-all as Reeves blocks locals’ right to object under sweeping Labour planning reforms
JACINTA TAYLOR
Residents will be blocked from lodging objections to massive solar farms near their homes under Labour‘s sweeping planning reforms.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to fast-track colossal clean energy projects using new powers that curb community scrutiny.
Incensed rural residents are warning of a ‘solar farm free-for-all’, with Parliament able to approve controversial schemes simply by deeming them of ‘critical national importance’.
Judicial reviews – legal action to scrutinise the decision-making process – will no longer be permitted, except on ‘human rights grounds’, according to the Treasury.
The Government said the move is an essential part of wider measures aiming to boost the UK’s energy security and soften the economic fallout from the Iran war.
In recent weeks, a government inspector gave the go-ahead for 110,640 solar panels to be installed across 14 fields at Burnhope in County Durham, declaring the sprawling scheme was necessary to ‘achieve net zero targets’.
The solar farm will border a popular nature reserve and breeding ground for curlews, one of the UK’s most endangered birds.
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Planning councillor Joe Quinn said: ‘The Government are going to make it nigh on impossible to do judicial reviews.
‘Everybody we speak to – planners, officers and even a KC – says the same thing – ‘Your chances of winning are so slim you might as well just chuck the money down the drain unfortunately.’
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