The War on Net Zero has Made Solar Farms the new Frontline

SUMMARY

• Solar power is rapidly increasing in importance as a source of UK renewable energy.
• However, planning applications for solar farms have become controversial.
• Notwithstanding some controversies, councillors generally work harmoniously with stakeholders to balance national planning policy guidelines and the views of local inhabitants.
• However, without political cover at the national scale, it’s likely that solar farms will face strong restrictions imposed through revised national policy.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) power has rapidly increased in recent years, not only in the UK but throughout the world. Solar PV is projected to make up around a fifth of UK generating capacity in 2030 under the government's Clean Power 2030 Action Plan.

However, controversies have emerged in applications for planning consent for solar farms, as opponents have expressed concerns regarding biodiversity, agricultural land and housing. The development of solar farms featured prominently in Reform UK's success in the 2025 local elections.

Solar farms are becoming a new cleavage in what was previously a consensus policy area. To understand this controversy, we need to understand factors that influence outcomes of planning decisions at the local authority level.

In England and Scotland, decisions on planning applications for solar farms up to 50 megawatts (MW) in size are made by local planning authorities (LPAs) which are to be distinguished from the lower-level parish councils (called community councils in Scotland and Wales). Only 46 of the nearly 3,300 solar farms proposed by the beginning of July 2025 were over 50 MW in size, which means they were submitted to the national planning authorities of Westminster and Scotland instead of LPAs.

National planning policies and Solar Farms

Developers will only invest time and money proposing schemes if there is the prospect of a return. Government-backed incentives for large-scale solar farms were originally launched by the previous Labour government. These included a) ‘feed-in tariffs’, and b) the Renewables Obligation. These days, solid returns are underpinned by the issue of long-term Contracts for Difference (CfDs) issued by the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero in annual rounds of contract auctions.

National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and Solar Farms

The new Labour government has been quick to introduce a new version of the NPPF, replacing the previous version of 2023. Yet, there is little direct change as regards solar farms. There has been consensus, at least through the NPPF, that solar farms and other renewable energy developments are to be supported as a means of paving the way towards a low carbon economy. The Labour government's iteration of the NPPF sharpened this focus with specific calls to support the ‘net zero’ objective. Having said that, there continues to be a heavy emphasis on ‘landscape’ protection.

Influences on outcomes

Around three-quarters of all (determined) solar farm planning applications are approved by local authorities. The total approved rises to over 80 per cent when successful appeals are considered. This rate of success is much better than for onshore wind farms. They are quiet, and, if shielded by hedges and trees, solar farms can often be very difficult to see (unlike wind farms). In fact, in our discussions with solar farm developers they argued that finding sites that have good enough affordable grid connection potential is a much more critical issue for solar farm development than achieving planning consent.

The NPPF forms the key context for local authority planning decisions. The other half of the planning equation for solar farms is the attitude of local people. A key measure of this is the attitude of local parish councils. Our quantitative research showed that the strongest predictor of outcomes was whether the local parish council and the planning officer agreed over whether to approve or refuse the planning application. In our research, landscape issues were the prime grounds for rejection.

On the other hand, we found that the attitudes of formally organised environmental groups, such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England had no measurable influence on planning outcomes. It is possible that offering community benefits such as donations to local schools may reduce planning opposition, but we cannot offer any clear conclusions.

Influences on councillors

An important question is the extent to which party membership influences the stances of councillors in relation to solar farm planning applications. We find no evidence that councillors’ party memberships influence solar development at the local level.

A prominent theme emerging from our interviews with councillors was that of ‘neutrality’. Councillors’ decisions are ‘neutral’ in the sense that they are usually independent of party membership considerations. Councillors are guided by implementation of national planning guidance. A councillor told us: ‘You might have views, but you haven't made a decision until you've heard all the [technical information]—It's like going into a court and sitting on a jury.’ However, exceptions occur when opposition to the proposals is so widespread that councillors feel their votes on the planning committees can be swayed.

Discussion

One notable aspect of the recent history of solar farm planning is that the Conservative government, at least since 2019, supported the construction of solar farms in the countryside despite the existence of local opposition to them. This is due to net zero targets and the fact that the planning approval rates are relatively high at local authority level.

Labour, on taking office in 2024, found no problem in supporting solar farms. Labour also removed the Conservative ban on windfarms in England. Not only was it congruent with its strategy of achieving 95 per cent of electricity from ‘clean’ power sources by 2030, but most of the planning conflicts were in often rural Conservative-held areas. Local organising around solar farms is most likely to be a rural activity affecting Conservative rather than Labour councils.

The increased support for Reform, especially in areas like Lincolnshire and Staffordshire where solar farms have been controversial, may have influenced the Conservatives to alter their stance on net zero (as reflected in party leader Kemi Badenoch's announcement in March 2025). Revising their support for net zero may allow them to distance themselves from solar farm controversies at a local level. Whether it will help to stem the voters’ support for Reform rather than the Conservatives, however, remains to be seen.

Without political cover provided by policies favouring a radical reduction of carbon emissions, it seems likely that solar farms, at least in the countryside, will face strong restrictions imposed through revised national planning policy. This political cover for ‘net zero’ strategies seems certain to be maintained for the length of this (Labour) government. Policy after the next general election is difficult, at this point, to predict.

The material in this article is drawn from the research project 'Solar Power in the UK—Planning for a Sustainable Future', funded by UK Research and Innovation, ES/X001512/1. We also acknowledge the contribution of Dr Lynn Bennie in helping us organise interviews with councillors, and the assistance of an anonymous referee from The Political Quarterly.