Put solar panels on roofs, not farmland - Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Peter Auty, Great Hatfield.

My stance on solar farms stays the same, they should not be on productive farmland.

Solar panels should be on roofs of all kinds, especially farm buildings, if need be they should be strengthened to take the extra weight.

The East Riding was to have no more than .05 per cent of land put down to solar farms, it's now approaching 4 per cent, the never ending applications passed for solar farms is beyond a joke.

When local planners listened to local complaints and turned down an application, Miliband's department passed it without any thought for the damage to local infrastructure, whole villages are surrounded by solar panels or battery back up sites, with the incessant hum that they create. House prices drop.

Writers have recently admonished my opinion of Miliband's decision to put back the roll out of the SMRs to 2029.

The SMRs should have been given priority over solar and wind (on land), they produce green energy and don't rely on the elements to perform, and they take up far less food producing farmland.

Maybe previous governments didn't push SMRs hard enough, but to give the contract to Rolls Royce and then put it back is inconceivable. Rolls Royce stated that the first SMR would be up and running in five-six years, there after one a year would be brought on stream, the only possible answer to the contract being awarded and put back, can only be it did not fit in with the unrealistic 2030 decarbonization date set by Miliband.

Large landowners are leasing their land to the solar energy companies for 40-60 years at the expense of tenant farmers, some who have farmed the land for generations.

Food security is just as important as energy.