The farmer loses the land. The landowner gets the solar deal

Old Malton demolishes the myth that “farmers” are cashing in from solar – and raises awkward questions for one of Net Zero’s loudest critics

By Shane Oxer — Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy

There is a convenient phrase routinely used whenever the industrialisation of the British countryside is challenged: “Farmers are cashing in from solar.”
It is simple, memorable – and sometimes completely wrong.
Because the person farming the land is not necessarily the person who owns it. And nowhere is that distinction more stark than at Eden Farm, Old Malton, North Yorkshire, where a tenant farming family faces losing almost half the land upon which its business depends while the long-term economic benefits of the solar development, according to North Yorkshire Council’s own planning report, would accrue “mainly to the landowner”. �
eDemocracy North Yorkshire
That one sentence should change the way we talk about solar farms.
The farmer may grow the crops, rear the livestock, maintain the drainage, improve the soil and build a business across generations.
But when the solar developer arrives, it can be somebody else who controls the land.
And when the landlord says yes, what happens to the tenant?
At Eden Farm, we now know the answer.
Three generations on the same land
Rob and Emma Sturdy farm at Old Malton. The family connection with Eden Farm stretches back to 1954, when Rob’s grandfather began farming there. His father followed him, and Rob became the third generation of the family to work the holding.
This is not a casual short-term arrangement. Parliamentary evidence submitted by the Sturdys records that the tenancy is protected under the Agricultural Holdings Act regime and retains a further opportunity for succession. The freehold, however, is held by Fitzwilliam Trust Corporation Ltd – FTCL. �
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That distinction is everything.
According to the Sturdys’ evidence to Parliament, FTCL informed them in 2020 that it intended to pursue a solar development across part of their tenanted land and, if permission were obtained, recover that land before leasing it for the solar project. �
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The eventual appeal site covered 52.86 hectares. The Planning Inspector found that 44.52 hectares – around 110 acres – lay within Rob Sturdy’s agricultural tenancy, amounting to just under half of the land subject to it. �
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This is where the lazy language about “farmers diversifying” falls apart.
The Inspector specifically noted that this was not a case of an occupier or tenant choosing to diversify his own farming operation into renewable energy. �
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The farmer was opposing it.
The landlord was on the other side of the equation.
The council said no. Government said yes
North Yorkshire Council rejected the application in October 2023 despite officers having recommended approval. The impact on the tenant farming business, agricultural land and other planning considerations played prominently in the debate. �
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Harmony Energy appealed.
After an eight-day public inquiry, the Inspector recommended that the appeal should be allowed. The Government subsequently granted planning permission on February 25, 2025 for a solar farm and battery energy storage system operating for 40 years. �
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But here is what makes this decision extraordinary.
The Inspector did not conclude that the Sturdys were exaggerating the consequences.
Quite the opposite.
Having examined the financial evidence, the Inspector found that the solar scheme would result in “irreversible detriment to Eden Farm as an existing successful agricultural business entity”.
He also found that, once planning consent was granted, Rob Sturdy faced the prospect of an “incontestable notice to quit” the affected land.
The report could hardly be clearer: if the development proceeded, Sturdy would lose access to all of the land involved in the scheme. �
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The Secretary of State accepted those findings.
The final decision acknowledged both the irreversible detriment to Eden Farm and the significant impact upon the tenant and his immediate family. The damage to the farming business and wider agricultural economy was given substantial weight against the development.
Permission was granted nevertheless. �
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After further legal proceedings, Farmers Guardian reported in September 2025 that the High Court had rejected the Sturdys’ challenge, leaving them facing the loss of the 110 acres. �
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Think about what that means when someone casually says: “Well, the farmer agreed to have solar panels.”
No. Not this farmer.
Who, then, receives the benefit?
The council’s own 2023 officer report gives us an unusually candid answer.
It said the longer-term local economic benefits would accrue mainly to the landowner as part of a rural diversification project, while simultaneously acknowledging that this would be offset by a reduction in local farming activity and a negative impact upon Eden Farm and the agricultural economy. �
eDemocracy North Yorkshire
That distinction should be printed in bold across every debate about solar development on tenanted land.
Landowner is not synonymous with farmer.
A tenant may have spent decades improving land that he does not own.
His father may have farmed it.
His grandfather may have farmed it.
His children may reasonably have expected to farm it.
Yet the commercial value produced by changing the land from agriculture to energy infrastructure can belong to an entirely different party.
This is not an argument that landowners have no rights. They plainly do.
It is an argument that politicians, developers and commentators should stop pretending that every solar lease represents a happy farmer diversifying his business.
Sometimes the farmer is the person standing in the way.
And sometimes planning permission gives the landlord the means to remove him.
Then came the compensation controversy
The Old Malton case becomes still more troubling when compensation is examined.
Under the Agricultural Holdings Act framework discussed at the inquiry, statutory compensation was referred to as reaching a maximum of six times the agricultural rent for the land removed from the tenancy. The Sturdys argued that this could fall considerably short of the actual commercial damage inflicted upon their business. �
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During the proceedings, an enhanced compensation proposal above the statutory minimum was also part of the discussion.
Then, in November 2025, Baroness Rock – who had chaired the Government-commissioned independent review of agricultural tenancies – stood in the House of Lords and named the Sturdys’ case.
She told Parliament that Harmony Energy had made an enhanced offer before the appeal, although the Sturdys considered it below their actual commercial loss. Following approval, Baroness Rock said, that offer was withdrawn and the position reverted to the statutory minimum of six times rent for the affected part of the farm. �
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That is Baroness Rock’s account to Parliament, and it should be described as such unless or until the parties release the underlying commercial correspondence.
But it raises an obvious question.
What sort of protection does a tenant farmer really possess if the compensation for taking a crucial part of a viable agricultural enterprise can ultimately be calculated using the agricultural rent of the acres removed rather than the true economic loss to the business?
Imagine removing almost half the productive machinery from a factory and compensating its operator according to the rent paid for the floor space on which the machinery stood.
Nobody would seriously argue that this measured the loss to the business.
Yet agriculture can find itself in precisely this kind of argument.
Even Government admits there is a problem
This is no longer merely the complaint of campaigners.
The Government’s own Solar Roadmap, published in June 2025, explicitly recognises concerns about solar projects damaging the viability of tenanted farming businesses when agricultural land is removed from a tenancy after planning permission.
It states that the Government wants compensation to be “adequate and fair”. �
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That is a remarkable admission.
If the present arrangements reliably delivered fair outcomes, why would reform be required?
Tenant farmers manage more than a third of England’s farmland, according to the Government’s own statements. They are not a marginal curiosity in British agriculture. They are fundamental to food production and rural communities. �
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Old Malton therefore cannot simply be dismissed as a private dispute between one landlord and one tenant.
It exposes a structural issue.
The planning system can acknowledge severe damage to a successful farming business.
It can acknowledge the tenant’s succession rights.
It can acknowledge the loss of agricultural activity.
It can acknowledge a significant personal impact on the farming family.
And then it can approve the development anyway.
And then there is the Rees-Mogg connection
This is where the story becomes politically awkward.
Companies House records show that Helena Rees-Mogg, wife of Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, is an active director of Fitzwilliam Trust Corporation Ltd, the corporate freeholder identified by the Sturdys in their Parliamentary evidence.
She has been a director since September 2008. �
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There is a further corporate connection. Companies House lists Wentworth Trustee Company Ltd as the person with significant control over FTCL, holding at least 75 per cent of its shares and voting rights and possessing the right to appoint or remove directors. Helena Rees-Mogg is also an active director of Wentworth Trustee Company. �
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This connection is not a secret discovery. Farmers Weekly was reporting Helena Rees-Mogg’s FTCL directorship when covering the Sturdys’ campaign in 2023. �
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But it has become more politically interesting with time.
Sir Jacob has emerged as one of Britain’s most outspoken opponents of current Net Zero policy. In 2024 he called for the targets to be postponed indefinitely and later argued they should be scrapped altogether. In June 2025 he wrote that Britain’s industrial problems could be solved by one thing: “abandon net zero.” �
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He has even argued that the rural economy is being damaged in pursuit of Net Zero. �
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There is plainly a political contrast worth examining.
But we should also be fair.
There is no evidence presently before us that Sir Jacob personally owns the Eden Farm land, negotiated the solar agreement or receives income from it. Nor does Helena Rees-Mogg’s position as a director, by itself, prove that she personally authorised the Old Malton deal or is personally receiving its proceeds.
Those distinctions matter.
The proper question is therefore not an accusation of personal profiteering.
It is this:
How does the wife of one of Britain’s most prominent critics of Net Zero come to be a director of the corporate freeholder involved in a solar development that threatens a tenant farming family?
It is a question FTCL and the Rees-Moggs are perfectly entitled to answer.
Meanwhile, the solar project moves forward
The project has not disappeared.
The Government’s 2026 Contracts for Difference Allocation Round 7a results include Old Malton Solar Farm, registered to Harmony OM Limited, with a capacity of 49.90MW and a stated delivery year of 2028/29. �
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So while the arguments about tenant protection continue, the energy project has progressed further into Britain’s subsidised electricity framework.
For the Sturdys, however, 40 years is not an abstract energy-policy modelling period.
It is effectively a working lifetime.
That was recognised during the inquiry itself.
And that is why this case matters far beyond Malton.
Stop saying “the farmers are cashing in”
Britain needs a much more honest discussion about what is happening to its countryside.
Some owner-occupier farmers undoubtedly choose solar willingly. Some use renewable income to stabilise otherwise vulnerable farm businesses. There are legitimate examples of agriculture and solar coexisting.
But that is not the whole story.
There is another farmer whom the glossy brochures rarely show.
The tenant.
He may not receive the solar rent.
He may not want the development.
He may have no equity in the land despite generations of investment in it.
And after planning permission changes what that land is worth to its owner, he may find that the very security he thought protected his farming future can be displaced.
Old Malton exposes that divide with unusual clarity.
The planning system itself concluded that the development would cause irreversible detriment to a successful agricultural business.
The Government nevertheless approved it.
Parliament was subsequently told that the enhanced compensation offer had been withdrawn.
Government has since acknowledged that tenant compensation needs to be adequate and fair.
And the solar scheme continues towards delivery.
So the next time somebody dismisses opposition to countryside solar by saying “farmers are making a fortune from it”, ask one simple question:
Which farmer?
The person who owns the land?
Or the person whose family has spent generations farming it?
Because once the tenant farmer loses the land, he can lose his livelihood with it.
And once enough farmers are gone, what exactly is left?
Shane Oxer
Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy