Don’t sacrifice our food security to solar profiteering

Sir, – Before anyone comes back at me, yes, I am a Nimby.

Living in the Benzil area outside Forfar I currently enjoy a relatively tranquil rural environment with beautiful unobstructed vistas of the Strathmore valley and the hills of Angus.

That will all change if Suttieside solar array is developed. I defy anyone to say that in my shoes they wouldn’t be arguing against the development on loss of amenity grounds alone, but there are much bigger issues at stake here.

Scotland, being a largely mountainous country, is not blessed with huge swathes of quality agricultural land. What prime land it has is predominantly in the lowlands and suffers severe development pressure to be used for housing, commerce, industry, recreation, forestry and now, renewable energy.

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated we live in a fragile world and neither energy nor food security should be taken for granted.

The first ever Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, enacted when food rationing was still imposed, recognised the importance of protecting land capable of producing a variety of crops.

Unfortunately, the Draft National Planning Framework 4 currently going through the Scottish Parliament appears blinded to the need for food security and favours the use of even prime land for production of renewable energy.

Companies are jumping on this opportunity by actively promoting solar development on agricultural land. With the viability of farming being squeezed from all sides and with the average age of farmers over 60, solar offers a much more secure financial future and more and more land is being offered up for solar arrays. I absolutely understand the attraction for the land owners and, of course, for the solar companies.

Tying the price paid for energy to the price of the highest, currently gas, makes solar (the cheapest to develop), very profitable.

In Angus alone current solar array sites developed, approved or subject to a planning application notice amount to around 800 hectares (eight square kilometres) much of which is on prime agricultural land as defined by Land Classification for Agriculture maps.

The role of government in a democracy is to protect its population and planning is supposed to be forward thinking. The loss of productive agricultural land to solar isn’t necessary while brown-field land and roofscapes remain undeveloped. Let’s take our food security seriously.

Neil Prentice.

Benzil, Forfar.