Lincolnshire will be known as "solar farm county" says Nigel Farage
The Reform UK leader has criticised plans for numerous solar farms in Lincolnshire.
Reform UK's leader says Lincolnshire will be known as the "solar farm county" if changes are not made.
There's currently over a dozen solar farms at different stages of planning in Lincolnshire.
Most are considered Nationally Signiant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) due to their size - meaning their approval is down to the Secretary of State for Energy Ed Miliband, not local government.
"Lincolnshire was known as the bomber county, and people were very proud of that and Lincolnshire's role in the war. In future, it'll be the pylon county, it'll be the substation county. It'll be the solar farm county," said Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in Lincoln.
"To think that of all the grade one agricultural arable land that we have in this country, Lincolnshire has got the most of it, and we're going to stop producing food and just import vast numbers of Chinese made solar panels backed up by battery systems, 2% of which have combusted already."
National planning policy guides solar farms away from the highest quality agricultural land - most applications need to cover a majority grade 3b land in order to be accepted.
"The whole net zero agenda is insane. It's giving us ever more expensive electricity prices," said Farage.
"It's de-industrializing the country. Sure, there are a few jobs in green energy, but weigh that against the numbers that are lost in traditional manufacturing.
"When you think that our energy prices are between four and six times higher than that of the USA."
The Gainsborough gas field was also a topic of discussion for the Reform UK leader in Lincoln.
Projections from American company HEYCO Energy suggest there's potentially over £100 billion of gas underneath Gainsborough.
However, the fracking needed to extract the gas is currently illegal in the UK.
"It would create many thousands of very well paid jobs in this county, reduce people's energy bills and make us nationally more secure," said Farage.
"Yet, politicians in Lincolnshire, aren't even having that debate, because they're all committed to a net zero agenda which says we'd rather import gas from Norway over the North Sea than produce it ourselves."