Ed Miliband issued warning over ‘land grab’ | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Ed Miliband has been warned he is probably not re-elected as Doncaster North’s MP over his pledge to quickly develop Britain’s photo voltaic vitality capability. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero might lose his seat to Reform UK after dealing with vital backlash from his personal voters over reported plans to cowl huge swathes of South Yorkshire farmland with photo voltaic panels, it has been urged.

Mr Miliband is main an aggressive web zero push for renewables, resembling photo voltaic, with builders exhibiting an curiosity in his personal constituency. The metropolis and surrounding areas have grow to be a hotspot for developments, together with the Marr Solar scheme, which is being led by an organization known as Enviromena. Another bigger photo voltaic scheme, set to encompass the small village of Fenwick, was accepted by officers this week.

Other tasks additionally accepted embrace Europe’s largest battery storage plant and no less than three extra photo voltaic farms. However, all however one have been criticised by the Energy Secretary’s personal potential voters.

According to The Telegraph, whereas it might be a coincidence, voters in every of the counties already chosen to host giant photo voltaic farms switched to Reform. In Mr Miliband’s constituency, Nigel Farage’s get together swept to energy in final 12 months’s native elections, ending many years of Labour dominance. Two Labour and one Conservative councillors have been changed by three new Reform councillors, who strongly opposed the scheme.

“Reform has Doncaster surrounded,” Stephen Fowle, a member of Moss and District Parish Council, who lives in Fenwick, instructed the paper. “Ed Miliband is never going to be our MP again.”

Formerly a staunch Labour Party member, Mr Fowle give up over what he described as London’s photo voltaic “land grab”, which he believes will devalue his house and destroy the agricultural character of the realm.

Rachel Reed, Reform’s Doncaster councillor, stated: “What we’re seeing round this space is the annihilation of the inexperienced belt and the destruction of agricultural land by photo voltaic farms on a grand scale.”

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She added that prime farmland is being developed in an area that does not see much sunshine, changing the landscape “towards native consent”.

Enviromena’s planning application for Marr Solar has been rejected outright by the City of Doncaster Council, despite being supported by planning officers. The decision is currently being appealed.

However, the Fenwick solar farm project is going ahead. Granted planning approval on Wednesday (February 18), the project will cover roughly 1,324 acres of land – equivalent to about 650 football pitches – and generate capacity of up to 237.5MW, enough to power approximately 75,000 homes annually. The solar farm will be built and operated by Boom Power, founded by Mark Hogan, a renewable energy entrepreneur.

Mr Miliband additionally accepted a number of large-scale photo voltaic tasks, together with the over 1,200-hectare Tillbridge photo voltaic farm in Lincolnshire, in October. According to its council chief, Sean Matthews, backlash towards the plans was key in serving to Reform additionally take management in final 12 months’s elections. If current polls are appropriate, Reform’s surge right here might quickly be repeated in Norfolk, Suffolk and different counties.