East Park Energy: North Bedfordshire

Blake Stephenson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (North Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, may I start by thanking you and, through you, Mr Speaker for permitting me to speak on this important constituency matter. I also welcome the Minister. For the benefit of those who may be not familiar with the process, the Minister will probably be very limited in what he can say specifically about the topic I am raising today. The topic is a proposal by East Park Energy for a large-scale, ground-mounted solar plant and battery energy storage system spanning North Bedfordshire and also the constituency of Huntingdon. This proposal is currently under consideration as part of the nationally significant infrastructure project process.

East Park Energy spans 1,900 acres of land—to give some perspective, that is larger than Gatwick airport—on what is currently open countryside. It engulfs the rural parishes of Pertenhall and Swineshead, Bolnhurst, Keysoe, Little Staughton, Staploe and Dean and Shelton in my constituency, as well as the parishes of Hail Weston and Great Staughton in the constituency of Huntingdon. Some 74% of the land is classified as best and most versatile agricultural land, and East Park is one of six nationally significant infrastructure projects impacting North Bedfordshire.

I have called this debate to discuss with the Minister the impact that East Park Energy could have on North Bedfordshire’s local residents and on its landscape and rural character, and to raise with him points specific to the proposal that, in my opinion, warrant serious consideration for its rejection. East Park Energy would permanently and fundamentally change the area’s rural aspect and character and transform open countryside into industrial land. It is important that we stop referring to these installations by the rather cute term of “solar farm”, because the truth is that they are industrialised complexes. This one is made up of 700,000 solar panels, each up to 3 metres high, along with fencing, lighting, CCTV, inverter stations, transformer units, battery storage infrastructure and cabling. That sounds a long way from what we understand a farm to be.

Proposed mitigations to plant trees in order to screen the development are usually insufficient. Even if planting to screen the panels is successful, it would take years for the trees to mature, and even at full maturity, large parts of the site would still be visible because of its topography. The site will be a huge, permanent, unmissable and miles-long change to the local environment of that part of England. It will not blend in with the existing environment; it will crush it.

It is important to say that we in Bedfordshire are not against solar farms in general. In fact, we have 44 solar farms that are already operational or proposed in both Bedford borough and Central Bedfordshire, which are the two local authorities that traverse my constituency. However, this specific proposal is different.

Given my interest in financial matters, I hope that I have the House’s discretion to make a couple of general points about the finance of solar farms, of which I know the Minister will be aware. First, it is important to note that, with large solar plants, we are paying the cost of capacity, not of output. Capital costs are excessive because of the inherent process inefficiencies in solar farms. That is fine as long as it does not end up on the public purse, but ultimately investors look for a return, so it does indirectly end up on us.

Secondly, we are paying for the cost of variability of output from solar plants—the hidden costs of changing the national network to cope with that new factor of energy production. Thirdly, it is important to note that we are paying the cost of buying the energy produced, even when it is not necessarily needed or used—paying essentially for wasted energy.

In addition to those points, which the Minister is aware of and which have already been factored in, the combination of solar-generated energy and energy price arbitrage via battery energy storage systems fundamentally changes the economic case for solar—certainly from a public benefit point of view. Returns to investors will already be supercharged by the addition of new capacity in the form of battery storage—a very significant additional investment. However, that additional investment makes financial sense only when the purpose is to arbitrage energy costs—producing energy at low price points to sell at high price points—but that is not really the intention of trying to get low-cost energy.

As a business person, I say that the overall structure of the contracts, which the Minister inherited from previous Administrations, directly encourages maximum financial leverage—taking on as much debt as possible in order to maximise returns to investors. We have seen in other areas of public infrastructure—particularly with Thames Water—the problems that arise when so much leverage can be put up. Essentially, the returns are privatised and the losses socialised. I would be interested in hearing the Minister’s observations on that.

Will the Minister advise on whether the Government have put in place, or have plans to put in place, a limit on the debt ratios that large-scale solar plant operators can carry? I did a quick check but could not see that such a limit was in place at the moment. I would be interested in the Minister’s thoughts on that. Tied to that point—again, from a financial point of view—is my own understanding about corporate and political risk. In the case of East Park solar, I am concerned about the corporate history and financial viability. I mean no disrespect to the business, but it has no prior experience in developing or operating such large-scale solar projects. There are substantial issues of project failure or poor management, and therefore the risk that the current developer sells the site on to somebody else with a whole new set of investors and objectives.

The Minister may not be able to speak about this, but at least one political party in this House has said that it might cancel such projects in the future, raising the risk of stranded assets. The Government should be considering that, not because they agree with it, but because if there is such a change in Government, it is the people of North Bedfordshire in this instance who will be left with those stranded assets—solar panels stretching for three miles one way and three miles the other way, with no economic return and no financial viability to remove them. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe there is a requirement for an escrow fund to be put in place for the removal of plants should a business go bust. Can he say what weight is placed on the historical experience of applicants for large-scale plants in installing and operating such plants in the past? Does that factor at all?

I have reviewed a number of these debates, and in many of them the issue of best and most versatile land has come up. The Minister must accept that East Park Energy’s proposal of 74% of the site being best and most versatile land is a pretty high proportion, well in excess of almost every single plant that has been adopted or accepted to date. It is a generational loss of arable land. I am afraid the proposal from East Park Energy lacks any serious demonstration of seeking lower-grade or brownfield land, and it appears to be at odds with national policy, which is to avoid using best and most versatile land.

I will quote the Minister back to him, because what he said was very sensible. In a debate on 15 May 2025, he said:

“I am not going to put a figure on it right now, but we have clearly said that it is important to find the right balance when it comes to best-use agricultural land.”—[Official Report, 15 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 573.]

The Minister will not give a figure today, but 74%? Come on now! Can he advise whether the proportion of best and most versatile land at 74% and the scale of East Park Energy will be an issue of weight in the appraisal? I do not expect him to say whether it is right or wrong. However, Ministers have said in previous debates that it is important not to use best and most versatile agricultural land and that food security is important, and then they have gone on to say that solar will only take up 1% of land, which implies both that it matters to avoid using the best and most versatile land and that it does not matter. Which is it? With the proposed figure standing at 74%, this seems to be a central point.

I want to make two final points that are of particular significance, to make the Minister aware of the broader issues. We need to consider the cumulative impacts. I want to put on the record the context of North Bedfordshire and the surrounding area that the East Park Energy proposal will be coming into. The first thing he should be aware of is that, for the past decade or more, Bedfordshire’s housing growth has been between two and three times the national average. If he looks at the 2011 and 2021 censuses, and at the number of households in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson), he will see that the level of housing growth is between two and a half and three times the national average. As he will know, that is great for the country, but it puts a strain on the surrounding infrastructure.

Secondly, Bedfordshire has six nationally significant infrastructure projects on the blocks right now. That is a huge amount. Let me enumerate them for the Minister. The first is the Black Cat roundabout on the A428, which is in the direct area of East Park Energy. That is the country’s largest ongoing road project, due for completion in spring 2027 or thereabouts. Secondly, East West Rail is the country’s third largest railway project, proposing to drive a line between Bedford and Cambridge, cutting through my North Bedfordshire constituency. Thirdly, Universal Studios is the country’s most significant inward investment. It started under the previous Government, supported by the then Opposition, and it has been brought home by this Government and is supported by the Opposition today. It will mean 10 million visitors a year, with all the movement of people that that entails, and the ancillary development around it.

Further away, Luton airport is expanding to facilitate that, doubling in size from 18 million to 30 million passengers a year. Very specifically, there is a new settlement in Tempsford. As I have said, Tempsford is currently a village of 400 residents and seven sheep. The Government are highly likely this year to take forward the proposal from the new towns commission that Tempsford should be the site of at least 40,000 new homes, going from 400 residents to over 100,000 on land that encompasses, abuts, and perhaps embraces, land for East Park Energy. On that specific point, it seems that we can have one or the other, but we cannot have both.

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. He is making a thoughtful and important speech. He has spoken eloquently about the cumulative development in both our constituencies, which is putting central Bedfordshire and Bedford borough under significant strain from a planning perspective. Does he agree that it is important for the Government to support our local authorities, so that we think holistically about these developments and ensure that our landscapes are protected, our local communities are listened to, and that we secure the agricultural land that we need for future food security? The reason we have so many farmers in Bedfordshire is because we have fantastic agricultural land. Would it not be a waste to build on all that land, and in the case of East Park Energy, to do so on the altar of net zero?

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes two important points. First, during world war two, London would have starved without agricultural produce from Bedfordshire. More importantly, the Minister must recognise that we are supportive. We know that the Government have a growth strategy—we may have disagreements on national economic policies, but we want to do our bit. Indeed, the people of Bedfordshire are doing their bit, and a lot more. The Minister will appreciate that, with so many projects happening all at once, at some point those things are going to break, and my hon. Friend makes an important point about that.

In East Park Energy’s documentation, it chose not to be comprehensive in the scope of its evaluations, and was insufficient in the depth of its analysis. For example, it completely omitted any reference to Luton airport expansion, the Universal theme park, and any potential new town at Tempsford. It dismissed the need for an assessment of Black Cat roundabout on the assumption that construction would be finished before East Park Energy starts, but there will be consequential effects, including further construction from the change at Black Cat roundabout. It dismissed the need for an assessment of East West Rail on an assumption, but it is highly likely that there will be an overlapping construction period should East West Rail go ahead. It lacked any assessment of medium or long-term effects such as permanent land use change and increased perception of the urbanisation of the area. It provided no consideration of the over-concentration of solar development in North Bedfordshire—my constituency is part of the 1% club, which is constituencies where over 1% of the land area will be covered by solar panels—and it ignored the impact of overlapping construction periods that it would be adding to for two and a half years, or 30 months.

Just imagine all the traffic from building Universal Studios, getting in construction because we want shovels in the ground to start building at Tempsford if the Government decide to go ahead with that, and trying to build East West Rail. East Park Energy completely ignored that, so from the point of view of understanding the impact of what it is going into, the proposal that was presented fell significantly short.

Finally, before I yield to the Minister, I know that he is limited in what he can say about specific projects and that, given his role, the Secretary of State would not be able to comment at all. As I mentioned briefly to the Minister earlier, I am in a small minority of Conservative Members who agree with some of the Secretary of State’s criticisms about past energy policy, even though I may not agree with all of his proposed remedies, so I hope that the Minister understands that my observations come from a positive place.

The role of a Secretary of State or his designated Minister in making a decision is a crucial step in an evaluation process, which the public must trust. They must assess each proposal individually on its merits, not just on overarching goals. There have been 12 solar panel development consent orders for evaluation since July 2024, each of which has been approved. Some of us may be old enough—not you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but certainly me—to remember the musical “Oklahoma!”, in which there is a song, “I Cain’t Say No”. That is a very old reference, but I am very old. I encourage the Secretary of State to avoid any caricature that he “cain’t say no”, because in the case of East Park Energy, my personal view is that there are considerable and specific reasons why he can say no.