Ed Miliband passes big solar farm project for Heckington Fen between Sleaford and Boston

The Government has given the go-ahead for a large-scale solar farm in the Lincolnshire countryside.

Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, has today granted development consent to the Heckington Fen Solar Park application, which is earmarked for a 524-hectare plot of land north of the A17 between Heckington and Swineshead.

The proposed development will involve the construction, operation and decommissioning of a solar photovoltaic electricity generating facility exceeding 50 megawatt (MW) output capacity, together with associated energy storage. The installed capacity of the solar generation is expected to be in the order of 500MW — enough to power 100,000 homes.

It is one of a number of energy projects proposed for the county — and the Government ruled on the scheme due to its size and significance.

The application was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for consideration by Ecotricity (Heck Fen Solar) Limited in February 2023 — and recommendations were made to the government last May.

A letter issued on behalf of Ed Miliband suggests the ‘public benefits’ of the scheme ‘outweigh the harm’.

North Kesteven District Council supported the principle of the development but raised a number of concerns — including the loss of prime growing land and the impact on the landscape and wildlife as well as the potential for noise, glint and glare impact.

In a submission to the Government, council leader Richard Wright had said: “There can be no denying that large scale schemes such as this are alien to an agricultural rural landscape such as Heckington Fen as we have come to know it, but if we want to keep the lights on and to live in the manner we are accustomed to, we also need to consider how we contribute to the generation of that electricity, locally, in a more climate-conscious way.

“We acknowledge the various negative side effects that this proposal presents. That is the nature of change and advancement. But so too, we need to acknowledge our need as a district, a county and a country to be achieving carbon net zero as swiftly as we can. In addition to the district council’s strategic direction, the Central Lincolnshire Local Plan provides parameters to achieve just that and for balancing those pressures.

“If successful, this scheme will power twice the number of homes within North Kesteven currently and prevent 75,000 tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere annually. The committee weighed that balance and felt that the wider effects of this specific development proposal did not cause the level of harm to warrant objection, even though we recognised the amount of good quality agricultural land that would temporarily be taken out of production.”

The county council has previously said that Lincolnshire has become a dumping ground for such applications.

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