Young at heart in the countryside
You may think that the colour of panels is limited to traditional bright blue, but there is now a whole range of finishes and tones that fit in with different buildings. Some panels even have a marbled colour to mimic the dappled shade of trees. But be careful—unusual colours may be less efficient at producing energy. You no longer have to choose a one-size-fits-all panel; a selection of shapes and sizes means that, with clever positioning, panels can blend in nicely. It’s important to think about how they fit with the features of your roof, such as skylights and windows. And, if you’re worried about panels spoiling a slate roof, there are also ‘solar slates’, which look like the real thing. Traditional solar panels are mounted on rails attached to the roof. A clean look can be achieved if the panels sit as flush with your roof as possible. Building solar panels into the roof itself solves this problem completely, but ‘in-roof’ solar can be difficult to install in existing buildings. An alternative is thin solar film, which can be applied onto glass to create transparent ‘solar glazing’— great for greenhouses or conservatories. Defra Secretary Andrea Leadsom has called for Britain’s youngsters to ‘engage with countryside matters’ and take up jobs currently done by EU migrants, such as fruit-picking and farm labour.
In agriculture alone, the UK benefits from more than 30,000 permanent and 67,000 seasonal overseas workers. They ‘play a crucial role in the rural economy, not least in farming and the whole food chain,’ says CLA president Ross Murray, who suggests the introduction of ‘a seasonal agricultural workers’ scheme post-brexit, enabling people to enter the UK for a specific job, for a set period of time without the right to remain afterwards’.
Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham last week, Mrs Leadsom made clear that, although there is no intention to deport anyone, ‘before we joined the EU, we had a very good programme of seasonal workers’ licences and it is not beyond the wit of man to have such a thing in future’.