Love Your Weekend presenter Alan Titchmarsh has hit out at Labour’s plans to triple the country’s solar capacity by the end of the decade by building solar farms.
The celebrity gardener had previously opposed plans for a 22,000-panel solar farm near his home. The plans were later withdrawn by the developers due to technical reasons. Criticizing plans to build solar farms on “farms of good soil”, he claimed the energy saved would be used to “send cheap foreign food” to Britain.
The Gardeners’ World presenter said he wants farmers to be paid for keeping land “healthy and productive”. He suggested that planners of solar farms fail to see what the saved energy will actually be used for.
He told Gardeners’ World magazine: “We need environmental scientists and climate experts, but we also need gardeners and farmers who want to be stewards of the land and make sure it is looked after in a way that May it remain healthy and productive in the future.
“Sadly, today we pay farmers to fill fields of good soil with solar panels to save energy, but fail to see that the energy saved could potentially be used to send cheap foreign food across the oceans to our shores. Is being done for.”
His latest comments come after he appeared on the Rosebud podcast last month and urged the public to “treasure our landscape” and warned that if we don’t do so Britain may not be able to produce its own food in half a century. “When we were young in the 1950s, 30% of household income was spent on food. Nowadays it’s between eight and 12%,” he said.
“We spend more on leisure and entertainment than on our food, as a result we will not pay more for food because it is cheaper in the supermarket, so why should we pay more when we can get it for ourselves, ” he said. Said.
“Our good soil in the British Isles is being turned into solar panels while good food can be grown in it – in solar panels to save energy, which will allow overseas food to be brought in using the energy we save. This is nonsense. And this is poor land management,” he added.
“I have started mumbling. But we desperately need to change our landscape to pay our farmers a fair price for their food and buy locally – otherwise I predict that within 50 years there will be no food grown in Britain.
The Labor government has announced plans to triple the country’s solar capacity by the end of the decade as Keir Starmer aims to overhaul the UK’s energy system by 2030. Ed Miliband’s promise to install solar panels across the UK by 2035 has angered farming campaigners who said it would have a devastating impact on Britain’s rural areas.
An estimated slightly more than 700 square miles of solar panels will be used, which is more than Greater London’s 607 square miles. Many of the panels will be visible across 200 square miles of the country – from Lincolnshire to South Wales and the West Country.
Up to 130 square miles in East Anglia and the South East will be needed to contribute to the government’s plan to generate 64GW of solar power in England and Wales by 2030. One gigawatt requires 10 to 11 square miles of solar panels. Solar panels vary in size, but are typically around two square meters.
The government released a sweeping plan on Friday setting out how ministers intend to lay the foundations to achieve the target of 95% clean energy across the UK by 2030.
