The Sunny Side of the Field

Countryside Column for Friday 9^th May

A far from sunny prospect

Now here’s a conundrum: should farmland be regarded as purely private property on which owners may to do as they wish in order to maximise their return or, alternatively, should we see this ‘countryside’ as part of some sacrosanct national heritage over which private ownership rights are curtailed for the public benefit?

            The question occurred to me at a lively meeting in our village hall recently. A senior member of ourParish Council was rumoured to be considering allowing some 50 acres of his land to be used as a solar farm – that’s to say covered with solar panels set at an angle facing southwards.

            There is nothing around here that so incenses people as the idea of any despoliation of ‘their’ countryside. It’s an AONB (area of outstanding natural beauty), they argue, and so anything like wind turbines or collections of solar panels are utterly inappropriate. They might agree in principle that we need more green energy to combat climate change, but just not anywhere around here.

            The answer to my original question is that the planning process is there to arbitrate. There are national and local guidelines. There are appeals and references to the Secretary of State. Local residents are able – and indeed encouraged – to present their views and sometimes, as at Balcombe, will exercise their right to demonstrate against a perceived evil such as fracking, but the outcome is determined by the democratic process.

            So what surprises me is the level of personal animosity that villagers level at anyone proposing potentially detrimental change. I felt it myself a few years back when I applied for floodlights at our local tennis club.  And it was evident again last week at the parish meeting, directed at my farmer colleague.

            Without getting too political, my suspicion is that most of those demanding his resignation and excoriating the idea of his even considering a solar farm would be far from socialist in their views. Yet isn’t there a tinge of that in their approach? You may own the land, but you don’t have the right to decide what to do with it. Society or ‘the state’ should override the rights of the individual. 

            Perhaps I’m wrong. Possibly they believe that it’s not the government who should tell him what he can and can’t do with his land, but they themselves.  And yet I’ll bet they’d be the last people to favour mob rule over democracy.