EXCLUSIVEAcres of solar panels are going to desecrate our countryside: Christine and Neil Hamilton reveal fall-out between neighbours whove taken cash from energy company - and why theyre just so enraged...
If you’re going to desecrate a piece of beautiful English countryside the size of 1,250 football pitches by covering it with thousands of solar panels and storage batteries as big as double-decker buses, it might be an idea not to pick a site at the bottom of Neil and Christine Hamilton’s back garden.
If you’re going to desecrate a piece of beautiful English countryside the size of 1,250 football pitches by covering it with thousands of solar panels and storage batteries as big as double-decker buses, it might be an idea not to pick a site at the bottom of Neil and Christine Hamilton’s back garden.
But a company called Island Green Power clearly didn’t get the memo.
It plans to build a huge solar park called Lime Down across swathes of the north Wiltshire countryside - a stone’s throw from the Hamiltons’ Grade I-listed home of 20 years.
And to say Neil and Christine are furious is a severe understatement. For one thing, they have stopped talking to their next-door neighbours - friends since the day they moved in - for having had the temerity to take Island Green Powers (IGP) 30 pieces of silver for their 180 acres. The Hamiltons have even got themselves on the steering committee of the ‘Stop Lime Down’ campaign group.
Neil, 75, is the former Tory minister who famously lost his seat following the 1990s ‘cash-for-questions’ scandal and was plunged into bankruptcy when he failed in his attempt to salvage his reputation through the courts.
Christine, also 75, worked as his secretary during his time as an MP but is, in many ways, an even more formidable figure. After resolutely standing by her husband’s side as his career ended in disgrace, she later earned a reputation as a feisty broadcaster and TV personality known as the ‘British Battleaxe’, with high-profile appearances on I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! and Celebrity Masterchef.
Neither is are they the sort to back down from a fight – the pair have embarked on their latest skirmish with trademark rambunctiousness. There’s an unmissable red and white Stop Lime Down poster planted in their driveway and they have others to hand, with slogans such as ‘green and pleasant, not greed and profit’.
We discuss their fightback over lunch in a grand dining room lined by bookshelves, watched over by a beady-eyed, lion-skin rug hung over a chair (there is also a white tiger throw in the ‘snug’).
Former Conservative minister Neil Henderson and British Battleaxe wife Christine display their anti-Lime Down posters in the fields set to become a solar farm
On an impeccably laid table, home-made pumpkin soup and quiche is served, while the hosts enjoy a glass of wine. For a moment, Christine’s mode is less British Battleaxe, more doting grandmother.
But the mood grows much darker when the conversation turns to the nine landowners who have struck deals with the Lime Down developer.
As well as their neighbours, the Duke of Beaufort - a friend of the King, whose family have been custodians of nearby Badminton House since the 17th century - has agreed to lease land to Lime Down.
Christine recalls recently receiving a letter inviting her and Neil to a fundraising event for St Michael and All Angels church, part of the Duke’s estate. ‘We would have supported that, but no longer,’ she says. ‘I thought: “F*** off.”’
Describing the impact on tenant farmers who could be kicked off their land, she adds: ‘He is prepared to do that for the money he will get over the next 40 or 60 years. People will lose their livelihoods.’
And those next-door neighbours are definitely in their sights, too. The Hamiltons were friends with John Branston, 57, and his wife, Kim, for 20 years. They own the land around the Hamiltons’ home – John even grew up in their property before it was sold by the family – and had already converted farmland next-door into the successful Flying Monk Brewery Cafe and Taproom in 2020. They also run nearby Dodford Farm, which is home to a daycare nursery.
‘We could have objected to the brewery, but we didn’t because we wanted to support diversification and they are our neighbours,’ Neil says. ‘But this is something else entirely. There are farmers who have been lifelong friends falling out because they believe farmland should be used for farming.’
Christine adds: ‘For nearly 18 months we were laughing and joking together around the dinner table and they kept completely shtum about the whole thing. We haven’t spoken to them since we found out.
An aerial view shows the scale of the upcoming solar farm, which will be constructed by solar firm Island Green Power
‘We were great friends. It’s horrible. It’s one of the worst aspects. We’ve known them for 20 years. We feel like we’ve been good neighbours and we’ve been kicked in the teeth by them.’
At this point, Neil interjects: ‘We’ve been kicked in a much more hurtful place.’ For his part, the landowner next-door says that ‘nothing is going to change my mind,’ before declining to comment further.
And it’s not hard to see why. While local landowners can expect an annual rent of £150 to £200 an acre if they let their fields to tenant farmers, IGP is paying out an estimated minimum of £1,000 per acre per year to lease their farmland for the solar development.
The fact that local landowners were first contacted by IGP in the summer of last year is another issue. Villagers were made aware of the solar park plans only in March when leaflets were dropped through letterboxes.
‘It was horror. Shock and horror,’ Christine says. ‘We just thought: Why here? My big problem is that we are going to be regarded as middle-class Nimbys [not in my backyard]. People will say: “Shouldn’t we have it on our doorstep?” Well, nobody wants it on their doorstep!’
Late last month, the plans were the talk of the countryside after Storm Bert left swathes of Wiltshire underwater, including many of the very fields where the panels are due to be constructed.
The scenes were a far cry from the idyllic view of the solar project promoted by Lime Down. One photograph on the firm’s website shows sheep grazing around the 4.5 metre-high panels under a clear blue sky. In another, the panels are encircled by a picturesque wildflower meadow.
IGP claims Lime Down could deliver up to 500 megawatts of renewable energy – enough to power approximately 115,000 homes annually. But all that is likely to be thrown into jeopardy if the fields are flooded.
A mock-up of the solar farm, which will be filled with bus-sized batteries that could damage the fertile lane
Not only will land around the Hamiltons’ home be covered by solar panels should the plans get the green light, but the couple will also directly overlook what Lime Down describes as its ‘battery energy storage system’ (BESS) designed to harness the power generated by the rows of panels.
To Neil, this will be ‘like having acres of shipping containers on that fertile land’ as ‘each battery is the size of a double-decker bus’. The fields’ housing panels and battery storage systems will also be surrounded by unsightly 3 metre-high security fencing, dotted with CCTV cameras.
Christine, who furiously bailed out water from her kitchen with a dustpan when Storm Bert hit, says: ‘Flooding has always been one of the major planks [of our opposition].’
Indeed, a central criticism of the Lime Down proposals raised with the planning inspectorate focused on the increased flood risk should the panels be installed.
Two planned sites are in flood-risk areas categorised as ‘zones two and three’ - with zone two areas described as having up to a one-in-100 annual probability of flooding. ‘Three’ sites are at an even greater risk.
According to the Renewable Energy Hub, which monitors the roll-out of renewable energy infrastructure in Britain, inverters and batteries in solar panels can be damaged or short-circuited if they are exposed to water. Ground-mounted solar farms could also be uprooted in severe flooding.
‘It causes all sorts of problems with the electrical infrastructure,’ Edward Richardson, director of the Renewable Energy Hub, says. ‘Electricity and water don’t mix very well. It’s also expensive testing everything afterwards to make sure it is safe. There are methods for safeguarding against floods, but generally it’s fairly self-explanatory – solar panels don’t like being submerged.’
Professor Richard Skeffington, a retired geography and environmental science lecturer at the University of Reading, who sits on the steering committee of the Stop Lime Down campaign group alongside the Hamiltons, says the chaos caused by Storm Bert flooding proved the scheme is inappropriate for the area.
Despite the plots susceptibility to flooding - as recently as last months Storm Bert - the eco-friendly set-up is planned to remain for 60 years
‘Anything that makes this worse is likely to have deleterious consequences,’ he told the Mail. ‘It’s going to be a matter for dispute - and I’m looking forward to having that dispute. The developers claim that the solar panels don’t make a difference because they are above the ground and the ground can absorb the water.
‘In reality, panels slope, concentrating the run-off water in a smaller area - like when water runs off your roof when it rains too hard and the gutters overflow. These streams of water are too much for the soil to handle, so you have a big risk of soil erosion.’
The Lime Down proposals indicate that, following a three-year development period, the panels will be in place for 60 years, after which the fields can be returned for use in agriculture. This notion has been widely dismissed by the scheme’s opponents.
‘It would be very difficult to return the land to its previous use,’ Professor Skeffington added. ‘And they are unlikely to care what will be around in 60 years – no doubt they will have sold the project off.’
An initial consultation report for Lime Down, published last month, found that 88 per cent of more than 750 respondents were against the plans.
But Lime Down appears to have an unstoppable momentum. Such is the size and scale of its solar farm, it is classed as a ‘nationally significant infrastructure project’, meaning its future will be decided not by the local council, but the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband – a notorious green energy zealot.
Mr Miliband approved four large-scale solar projects during his first eight weeks in office, despite strong local opposition. One of them was the 600MW Cottam Solar Project, on the Nottinghamshire-Lincolnshire border, which is also being developed by IGP.
Ironically, given Neil Hamilton’s chequered career, IGP is chaired by another politician with a colourful past: former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Mr Ahern, as opponents to the Lime Down plans have pointed out, has himself been on the receiving end of allegations that he received cash while in office for dubious reasons.
Neil and Christine Hamilton in the living room of the home that will soon be surrounded by Lime Down Solar farm
He was found by Ireland’s Mahon inquiry to have been ‘untruthful’ in his accounts of a number of financial transactions while prime minister. It did not make a corruption finding but he earned the nickname the ‘Teflon Taoiseach’.
Also on the board of IGP is billionaire telecommunications entrepreneur Denis O’Brien, once Ireland’s richest man. In 2015, he sought a high court injunction to prevent the media covering details of his personal finances that were discussed in the Dáil, the Irish parliament.
From September 2021 to June 2022, former Conservative home secretary Amber Rudd was also listed as a director of IGP.
In 2022, Macquarie, a notoriously ruthless Australian investment firm nicknamed the ‘Vampire Kangaroo’, acquired a 50 per cent shareholding in IGP. It is known in Britain for its ownership of Thames Water for 11 years until 2017. It loaded the privatised water company with £10.8billion of debt while rewarding shareholders by paying handsome dividends.
Neil, who was the leader of UKIP until he retired from front-line politics earlier this year, describes the firm as ‘rip-off merchants facilitated by a Labour government’.
A spokesman for IGP declined to comment.
While the Hamiltons have not always shown impeccable judgment when it comes to picking their battles – an ill-advised appearance on Have I Got News For You a week after Neil lost his seat in the 1990s sleaze scandal springs to mind – they believe this is a fight they can win.
Indeed, solar still counts for less than 5 per cent of power produced by the National Grid. Evidence that the quest for green energy is doomed owing to the constraints of our climate, or a sign that we need to invest further?
Christine has only one answer: ‘The scale is almost unimaginable, especially when you look at the limitations of solar in England. If our kitchen had to flood to get our point across, then so be it.’
