Lincolnshire council leader vows to ‘lie in front of bulldozers’

The leader of a county council has vowed to “lie down in front of bulldozers” to stop work on what is claimed to be the UK’s largest solar farm.

Plans for the Tillbridge Solar project, close to the village of Glentworth in Lincolnshire, were approved by the government on Tuesday.

Developers said it would be able to power about 300,000 homes, making it larger than any currently built.

Councillor Sean Matthews, leader of the Reform UK-led Lincolnshire County Council, said: “As far as I’m concerned, it’s vandalism of our beautiful county and I’m going to do whatever I can to stop it.”

Due to the scale of the development, which would cover about 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares), it is classed as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP), meaning the decision to allow the plan is determined by the government.

It is one of several NSIPs planned for Lincolnshire, including solar farms and a corridor of pylons between Grimsby and Walpole, in Norfolk.

A letter outlining the decision on the Tillbridge scheme said the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband had concluded the benefits of the proposed development outweighed any potential adverse impacts.

However, Matthews labelled the scheme as “absolutely unnecessary”, adding Lincolnshire would be turned into “an industrial wasteland”.

“If the government was genuinely serious about this they would legislate and make all new buildings have solar on them – but they’re not – they just want to take over our huge beautiful farmland.

“It’s an absolute travesty.”

He said the council was exploring options, including the possibility for a judicial review, to “slow this down until we get a Reform government”.

“It’s a temporary thing as far as I’m concerned and as soon as we get in we will start scrapping all this net zero nonsense,” he said.

In the meantime, Matthews added: “I’m going to do whatever I can to stop it, and that does include laying in front of those bulldozers.”

In an impact report, West Lindsey District Council, the local authority for the Tillbridge project, highlighted “significant concerns” regarding the cumulative impact of the scheme.

Council leader Jackie Brockway said she was “horrified” by the approval of the scheme.

“While West Lindsey obviously supports clean energy, we don’t think there is any great sense in taking our prime farmland, especially at a time of such insecurity in Europe,” she said.

Brockway said this was the fourth large-scale infrastructure project proposed for West Lindsey, and was concerned about the cumulative impact.

“If there is any way we can prevent this urbanisation of the countryside then I would wish to support that,” she added.

Meanwhile, Jerry Parker, from the 7,000 Acres campaign group, which includes residents from more than 30 villages living near proposed large-scale infrastructure projects in the region, said they were not against green energy.

“This is all about appropriate location of these sorts of renewable sites,” he said.

“You’ve got brownfield sites that have been ignored for the development of these particular projects – and the most sensible place to put solar is on rooftops.”

However, Chris Hewett, chief executive of the trade association Solar Energy UK, said solar farms provided the cheapest source of electricity in the UK.

“The larger they are, the more they benefit from economies of scale. Critically, they produce home-grown clean energy, displacing expensive and polluting natural gas from the grid,” he said.

Mr Hewitt also said the area needed to deliver the UK’s solar aspirations over the coming years was a tiny fraction of agricultural land that would have “no meaningful impact on food production”.

Solar farms were also helping farmers to keep growing food by delivering a stable and reliable income, protected from the “vagaries of market conditions and adverse weather”, he added.

The Tillbridge project is a joint venture between Tribus Clean Energy and Recurrent Energy.

It would include infrastructure for connection to the National Grid at Cottam substation in Nottinghamshire.