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The Green Party politicians who oppose solar farms







Solar farms and the Green Party.

Given the party's environmentalist credentials, these are two things you would expect to be inseparable bedfellows.

And yet in some rural areas of England where support for the Greens has surged at recent local elections, the reality is more complicated.

Despite the party's zeal for sources of renewable energy, some of its councillors in England have opposed solar farms locally.

While these councillors say they had good reasons to reject solar farms, their resistance sits uneasily alongside their party's national energy policy, which envisions a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

The apparent contradiction has not gone unnoticed by the party's critics, who have accused some Greens of hypocrisy for blocking clean energy.

A huge expansion of solar is needed to meet the UK government's target of net-zero emissions by 2050. As the party in government, the Conservatives bear the most responsibility for this.

The Greens aren't entirely off the hook, though. Their decisions to oppose some solar farms shape our energy system, and give the impression that local objections have more weight than national missions.

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Frank Adlington-Stringer is one Green councillor who has opposed a solar farm in the past.

In 2021, before he was elected to North East Derbyshire Council, Mr Adlington-Stringer wrote an article explaining why he could not support a solar farm in the county.

He said "the loss of green space" and the restriction of "already limited habitats" were among his main concerns.

In the end, the application was rejected by government planning inspectors. At the time, one local Green councillor said "younger generations are very concerned about the effects of climate change, and might see things differently".

In this case, at least, Mr Adlington-Stringer, 25, did not. He says while he is open to solar farms, he believes such projects should not be a "priority".

"We shouldn't be exchanging green energy for green spaces," he says.

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