Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government for how many acres of ‘best and most versatile agricultural land’ (grades 1, 2 and 3A) consent has been granted for solar energy generation as nationally significant infrastructure projects since 4 July 2024.

Since 04 July 2024, 6 solar farms have been approved which are located either mostly or entirely on grade 1-3 agricultural land (not distinguishing between 3a and 3b type). Together, these projects have a total area size of 11,671 acres within their Development Consent Order (DCO) limits. Just over half of this will be used for the solar farm development and the remaining land within the projects’ DCO limits will be used for purposes such as environmental mitigations.