THE HEAT IS ON

Mega solar farms are on the rise but campaigners warn they threaten protected wildlife, food production and tourism

- By Sarah Barltrop

IT FORMED one of Labour's manifesto projects, launched as part of a wider promise to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

But the drive for more mega solar farms has turned green belts into battlegrounds as conservationists warn of threats to wildlife, tourism and food production in historically undisturbed pockets of countryside.

Labour has set ambitious targets to achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 - reducing emissions by 68% (compared with 1990 levels) by 2030. As part of this strategy, it has pledged to treble the UK's ability to produce solar power over the next five years.

Yet many rural residents are resistant to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband's plans.

At Gwent Levels, near Newport, wildlife experts tell the Express that almost a fifth of its eight Sites of Special Scientific Interest could be under threat if all planned solar developments go ahead.

"It's an irreplaceable landscape," says Gemma Bode, head of nature recovery at Gwent Wildlife Trust. "Wildlife can be really resilient and it can come back, but it can't come back from this."

The proposed Rush Wall Solar Park is earmarked for a historically important site where the drainage network was built by the Romans. Gemma says nationally important species at risk include water voles, water beetles, dragonflies, and rare shrill carder bees, present in only a handful of sites across the UK.

It's not the first time the 200 sq km site has come under attack. Campaigners previously prevented a crossing for the M4 motorway from going through it.

Meanwhile, some 6,000 people signed a petition to halt significant developments on the Gwent Levels SSSI when the Llanwern Solar Farm was built in 2020.