Can the UK have energy security without blocking other national priorities?

By Chris Calvert, Executive Director at Pegasus Group 

Energy security in the UK is increasingly threatened by geopolitical conflict. At the same time, the country needs more renewable energy to achieve net zero targets. But does the country have enough land for renewable energy projects without harming our housing and food security? 

New solar schemes are often cast as a threat to the countryside that will inevitably come at the expense of food production, landscape character, and other forms of development, such as housing.  

In response, the government has launched a first-of-its-kind Land Use Framework that seeks to set out a national vision for using land in England. It’s a Government blueprint to shape better decisions on optimising land use to produce renewable energy, construct more homes, restore nature, and produce food.  

As environment secretary Emma Reynold put it, the UK’s fragmented approach to tackling these issues has resulted in a “confused picture and missed opportunities for land to deliver multiple benefits.”  

The 56-page report commits to a more unified approach – specifically, setting up a land use unit in the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs that maps out “national spatial priorities” in England that include food production, energy, nature, and housing. The government will update this framework every five years – but will this be enough to deal with more rapid change? 

Just 1% of England’s land is needed for renewables  

The Land Use Framework is a welcome change that dispels myths surrounding land use for renewable energy projects like solar and wind farms.  

Its central message is that the country has enough land to do what is needed, even when factoring in land for solar, wind, and grid infrastructure. There is still enough for domestic food production and the homes needed to address the housing crisis. 

In fact, just 1% of England’s land will be needed for renewables such as solar and onshore wind to help meet the UK’s climate goals by mid-century.  

This mirrors what our team at Pegasus Group has seen at planning application level while providing planning and appeal evidence. For solar schemes, for example, we often find that the proposed development area represents only a small fraction of total agricultural land in a district. Sometimes this is as low as a fraction of one percent.  

While that does not automatically make a scheme acceptable, it does bring into stark relief the fact that the choice for local authorities is rarely “farmland or energy.” Nor is the choice “housing or energy,” “commercial build or energy,” etc.   

Strategic energy mapping is a step in the right direction, but needs local nuance 

The framework also makes clear the government’s intent to develop more strategic spatial tools for energy, including mapping where different types of infrastructure might be built. This kind of mapping can help instill confidence in communities about decisions concerning renewable energy projects. 

Local nuance is needed, however. Strategic maps should be treated as guides that prompt better questions, rather than rigid zoning that rules out good sites based on paper alone. There is also a very real risk that we will be faced with multiple layers of maps, be they Development Plans or the upcoming Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP). Co-ordinating and managing the implications of such documents will need to be carefully thought through. 

The Land Use Framework is, along with other documents such as Clean Power 30 (CP30) another tool for developers and planners to combat claims that solar and wind farms will unacceptably erode our land resource. Whether its potential is fully realised will depend on how we use it in making policy and decisions with regard to specific schemes. As an industry, we may be able to use this tool as a starting point for honest, locally specific conversations about the impacts and benefits of renewables.  

If you’re working on a renewable energy or grid project and want to understand how the Land Use Framework affects your plans, please get in touch with Pegasus Group to discuss how we can support you.