Ryedale tenant farmers 'shocked and devastated' after Government rules in favour of solar firm
A tenant farming family has said it is “shocked and devastated” after a Government minister ruled a plan to build a solar array on top quality farmland which could generate power for 8,000 homes should be approved.
Rob Sturdy and his wife, Emma, said they were considering their options over the 280-acre Eden Farm in Old Malton, but now believed the Government was putting the creation of clean energy above all other considerations.
The decision by Matthew Pennycook MP, Minister of State for Housing and Planning, came five months after a packed public inquiry heard opposition to Knaresborough-based Harmony Energy’s venture for land owned by the Fitzwilliam Trust Corporation was the biggest challenge to a planning application ever seen in the area.
The decision notice states “easily and readily available grid connectivity” was given significant weight in reaching the conclusion, as had been the creation of clean and secure renewable energy and the biodiversity net gain which would be achieved.
Weighing against the proposal, the document states, had been the erosion of the wider local agricultural economy, including detriment to Eden Farm as an existing successful business, as the scheme would have taken away just over 40 per cent of the Sturdys’ arable farmland.
Other factors which weighed against the scheme, the decision notice, states, were the harm to nearby designated heritage assets, the loss of farmland rated as best and most versatile and harm to landscape character and appearance.
The family have led a four-year campaign to prevent 90,000 panels being sited across 110 acres of the land that they had worked to improve and invested in since 1971. The case became seen as a national test case over the issue of tenant farmers being evicted to make way for a more profitable land use.
North Yorkshire Council had previously rejected Harmony Energy’s scheme, partly due to the loss of top quality farmland and partly over damage to the landscape, the Sturdys business and because other sites had not been sufficiently considered.
In a statement, the family said: “We are shocked and devastated at this ill-judged decision which will cause immeasurable damage to our successful farming business and leave us with a very uncertain and difficult future.”
Describing their efforts fighting this application as “mammoth” and having spent a significant amount of money on a team of professional advisors, the Sturdys said they had believed they had put forward a strong case to the public inquiry.
"We could not have done any more. We have fought with integrity, tenacity and a strong moral compass that sought to protect the characteristics of this part of North Yorkshire. Today, unlike some, we can hold our heads high.
“Quite simply, this Labour government does not support the hard-working farmer or family business, and the drive to net zero nationally and locally is destroying businesses like ours.
“Solar appeals are notoriously difficult to challenge; we went into this with our eyes wide open and have always known that our arguments were sound in accordance with planning policy and we always hoped in our hearts that common decency and justice would prevail.”