MP warns of legal fight after plans for huge solar farm near Peterborough get go ahead

​Plans to build one of the UK’s largest solar farms on the edge of Peterborough have been given the green light.

​The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband has announced approval for the 350MW Mallard Pass Solar Farm.

The project involves the installation of an unspecified number of solar panels across a 700 hectares site that straddles the East Coast Main Line at Essendine, near Stamford.

The application, which had been submitted jointly by Windel Energy and Canadian Solar, had triggered large scale opposition from people living nearby and local politicians, including Rutland and Stamford MP Alicia Kearns.

A petition signed by 3,414 individuals was presented to Parliament in March calling for the proposed development to be refused due to its scale, impact on community, loss of agricultural land, impact on landscape and biodiversity and environment, damage to historical environment, and risk of solar panels produced by forced labour.

But the approval notice states: “The Secretary of State has considered the overall planning balance and has concluded that the public benefits associated with the proposed development outweigh the harm identified, and that development consent should therefore be granted.”

Mallard Pass Solar Farm is expected to provide what the developers say will be reliable, low-cost electricity to the national grid and has the potential to deliver enough energy to power the equivalent of 92,000 UK households.

Following the approval announcement, Ms Kearns stated on X: “I will be considering the next steps available to us, including judicial review.

“I am sorry to all those who have campaigned so hard, for so long, and whose voices today were flagrantly dismissed.”