The solar farm in Lincolnshire will be able to power over 180,000 homes a year
Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, has said that the government’s decision to approve the UK’s largest solar farm is ‘disgraceful’ and ‘appalling’, and vowed to stop it being built.
Tice and other right-wing figures have expressed outrage at the decision to approve Springwell Solar Farm, an 800-megawatt development, which will power more than 180,000 homes per year and aims to reduce Britain’s reliance on oil and gas.
Tice, who is the MP for Boston and Skegness in Lincolnshire, wrote on X: “Disgraceful appalling decision.
“We @reformparty_uk will do our best to stop this being built or connected. No one wants these solar farms on food producing farmland.”
Tice said that instead, the government should approve licences to drill for oil and gas in Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in the North Sea.
While Tice said Reform will try to stop the solar farm from being built, one X user pointed out that his own business “boasts about the benefits of solar”.
The Reform deputy leader’s real estate company, Quidnet Reit boasted about the benefits of fitting solar panels and electric car charging stations at its commercial properties.
In the company’s 2022 annual report, Tice wrote that installing solar panels and electric car charging stations “will save hundreds of tonnes of CO2 every year and help our occupiers with lower electricity bills than they might otherwise have to pay, as well as provide an attractive return for shareholders”.
In addition, despite Tice’s claim that the solar panels will take up land that can be used for food production, it is possible to use a practice called agrivoltaics to grow crops beneath solar panels.
Commenting on the decision, energy secretary Ed Miliband said in a post on X: “We need as much clean power as possible to get us off the fossil fuel rollercoaster, to give us energy sovereignty and abundance.
“Decisions like these are vital for our energy security.”
Former energy secretary Claire Coutinho, called the move “mad”.
Coutinho said: “Over 40% of this 3000 acre site is on prime farmland.
“Labour are crushing farmers with taxes while incentivising them to use their best land for solar farms, not food.”
Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson wrote on X that the land is “for growing food, moron”. She then claimed: “One day, the batteries in a solar farm are going to cause an inextinguishable blaze. This will be your fault, Mad Ed.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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