Within days of winning the election, the Labour Party has started to accelerate solar installations.

Three new solar farms capable of producing 1.4GW have been approved at Mallard Pass, Rutland and Lincolnshire, Sunnica in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and Gate Burton in Lincolnshire.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has approved the farms as he praised the speed of his own decision making.

However not everyone has been happy with the decision, and as with his predecessors, it may yet all end up stuck in a legal quagmire with questions over the speed that did not allow for thorough community consent, human rights and food security reports and potential links to slave labour used in the solar panel construction.

Sunnica said of the decision: “This important milestone and the decision by the Secretary of State has come after many months of intense scrutiny and robust engagement with the planning process, and wider public consultations. We will now move forward towards the implementation phase, ultimately allowing us to create clean renewable energy for the UK and look forward to meeting with local authorities and the wider community to plan the next steps.”

Miliband has also said that he is seeking a “solar rooftop revolution” with a relaunch of the Solar Taskforce that was established by the previous government to drive forward solar deployment of 70GW by 2035 and plans to co-opt planning rules to be more solar friendly.

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