Rejected petition Put solar panels on roofs rather than agricultural land
The urgency of acting on climate change means we need more renewable energy but the rush to build solar farms on agricultural land has taken on a scale and speed that means we are at risk of creating new problems rather than solving existing ones. We believe that we need a strategy that focusses on putting solar panels on residential, commercial and agricultural building roofs rather than taking up valuable agricultural land and impacting on nature rich areas.
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The scale of plans for new solar farms on Anglesey and on the Gwent Levels, with many thousands of acres of land potentially being used for solar panels, has shown that we need a more sensible, better thought through strategy for solar power in Wales.
The UK is only about 60% food self-sufficient. It simply doesn’t make sense to take up valuable agricultural land when we should really be thinking about how we can become more self-sufficient.
The scale of the solar farm proposals also mean that they will impact on species rich habitats and impact communities in their areas. The proposals are simply too many and too big. There is however a better way forward. It is possible to cut our emissions whilst not creating other problems for nature, for agriculture and for our communities.
We call on Welsh Government to pause these massive new solar farm developments and instead develop a new strategy that prioritises the placing of solar panels on existing roofs first.
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue, or if the Petitions Committee has considered one in the last year.
You may wish to note the following petition considered by the Committee:
https://petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/245375
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards
Rejected petitions are published in the language in which they were submitted