MP for North West Hampshire Kit Malthouse has raised concerns over the effect of planning on national landscapes and asked for reassurance that the Government will “respect” these.

Mr Malthouse made the comment during an urgent statement by energy secretary Ed Miliband on Labour’s “clean energy superpower mission” on Thursday, July 18. 

During the statement, Mr Miliband said climate change “is the biggest threat to nature and food security”, not solar panels on farmland.

Applications for solar farms in North Hampshire have come under fire from residents and environmentalists, including Strattons Farm, just off the A339, near Kingsclere, which was immortalised in Watership Down. 

READ MORE: Solar farm on land near Watership Down met with wave of objections

Mr Malthouse continued: “I have a series of solar farm applications in my constituency, some of which are either in or impinge upon the area of outstanding natural beauty, and it’s very important – that landscape is protected for a reason – that the Government respects those protections in planning law.”

Mr Miliband replied: “I understand as a constituency MP the concerns of local people on these planning issues and we have to take these concerns seriously, not all planning applications are good applications and that is not the position of this Government.

“At the same time I think it is widely recognised – in particular if you take what the national infrastructure commissioner said – the way the planning process has worked has delayed the clean energy we need and it has made us poorer as a country.”

SEE MORE: Plans submitted for 86-acre solar farm development on countryside near Andover

Earlier in the session, Tory former minister Dame Harriet Baldwin asked what parameters would be “put on the building of pylons, wind farms, and solar farms” across beautiful landscapes such as the Malvern Hills, which spans Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire. and Bredon Hill, in the Vale of Evesham.

Mr Miliband replied: “There are clear parameters in the legislation about consultation that needs to take place with local communities.”

He added: “We have to make judgments as members of this House, which is: given the scale of the climate crisis we face, given the scale of energy insecurity we had and energy security threat we face, do we believe we need to build infrastructure? Now I happen to believe we do – yes with community consent, yes with community benefit, yes with the planning rules I’ve set out.”