🌾 1. Yorkshire’s Iconic Landscapes Are Under Attack
Here is the Yorkshire that millions of people come to see every year. the Yorkshire that generations have fought to protect:These dry-stone walls, rolling pastures, farmsteads and open views are not “empty spaces” for solar developers to colonise.Yet the LAEPs label huge swathes of this land as “suitable for large-scale ground-mounted solar.”Large parts of:The DalesThe MoorsThe Vale of YorkThe A1 CorridorAgricultural belts around Selby and Hambleton…are all being quietly re-designated as renewable-energy zones.Yorkshire is being mapped, zoned, and targeted as a green industrial estate — without a single public vote.
🚜 2. Farmers Are Being Sold Out And They Know It
The people who grow our food, shape our rural landscapes and maintain the countryside see exactly what’s happening:These are ordinary residents saying the obvious:No solar farms on agricultural landSave our wildlifeProtect the Green BeltKeep Yorkshire rural
They can see that losing Grade 1 and 2 farmland ,the best in Britain, to solar fields is madness.In a world of rising food prices and unstable global supply chains, the LAEP plans to carpet farmland in imported solar panels is beyond irresponsible. It is dangerous.Yorkshire can’t feed the nation if developers are allowed to pave over the fields.
🏞️ 3. The Yorkshire Dales and Moors Are Not Industrial Zones
Look again at what is at stake:
This is not “unused space.”This is not “low-value land.”This is not a place for industrial solar, massive BESS compounds, or new pylon corridors.This is:a National Parka living heritage landscapea globally recognised beauty spotan economic asset worth hundreds of millions in tourisma place of tranquillity, wildlife and cultural identityThe LAEPs would desecrate this for the sake of targets written in offices in London.
💥 4. Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) Are a Fire Hazard Nobody Asked For
The LAEPs promote huge lithium battery compounds often next to villages, farms and schools.Yet:
lithium fires cannot be extinguished
they release toxic gases
they can explode during thermal runawaythe UK has no national fire safety standard for BESS sites
Why should Yorkshire communities be forced to live next to 20 tonnes of volatile chemicals because Whitehall wants to hit a target?The answer is simple:They shouldn’t.
💷 5. Households Cannot Afford the Heat Pump and Retrofit MandatesThe LAEPs demand that 355,000 Yorkshire homes must be:deeply retrofittedconverted to heat pumpsupgraded with new wiring, radiators and insulationCost?Somewhere between £6.4 and £12.4 billion.
Cost to homeowners?Often £20,000–£35,000 per house, more for rural properties.Many of these are:stone-built cottages.Victorian terraces
farmhouses
draughty rural homes
unsuitable for heat pumps without major structural workThis scheme is not just undeliverable it’s an economic hammer blow.
⚡ 6. The Grid Cannot Handle the LAEP Plans
Every engineer knows what politicians refuse to admit:
Yorkshire’s grid is already overloaded
Connection queues stretch into the 2030s
Substations like Thorpe Marsh, West Melton and Drax cannot handle more load
Reinforcement takes decades and billionsYet the LAEPs assume:heat pumps everywhere
electric cars everywhere
solar everywhere
electrification of heat, industry, transport
It is fantasy engineering.The grid cannot do it.
🏛️ 7. Worst of All.Nobody Voted For This
The LAEPs represent one of the biggest transformations of Yorkshire’s land use in a century.Yet:
there was no referendum
no public vote
no democratic mandate
no local consent
This is policy imposed from above, not shaped from below.And Yorkshire deserves better than that.
🚮 Conclusion: Bin the LAEPs Save Yorkshire
Yorkshire needs an energy plan grounded in:food security
landscape protection
engineering reality
affordability
local democracy
Not a plan drawn up by consultants who think the Dales and the Moors are blank canvases.
The LAEPs would:destroy farmland
industrialise landscapes
push households into debt
overwhelm the grid
threaten wildlife and trample local democracy
Yorkshire is not a laboratory.It is a home, and it deserves a plan worthy of its people, its heritage, and its future.It’s time to put the Yorkshire LAEPs in the bin and start again.
SAY NO TO THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR LAND 
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