Picturesque villages across the country are set to be surrounded by sprawling solar farms as green energy firms plot to seize record amounts of land for Labour’s Net Zero crusade.
Until now, controversial solar farms have mainly been confined to smaller sites next to industrial parks, main roads, estuaries and remoter rural areas.
But an investigation by The Mail on Sunday has discovered that plans are in place to build large-scale solar farms right up to the boundaries of historic villages – in some cases even up to the fences of families’ back gardens.
It comes as this newspaper can also reveal that solar energy companies have hatched a 62,500-acre takeover of England and Wales’s scenic landscapes since Labour took power in July last year.
The plans for 27 sprawling solar complexes, equivalent to an area the size of Birmingham, were lodged between July 2024 and this month, more than twice as many as the year before.
