Luton South and South Bedfordshire
Luton South and South Bedfordshire has 4.5 MW of clean power (mostly solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 2,400 homes. When the wires are too full to carry the power, Britain pays wind farms to switch off instead. No wind farm here is paid that way — almost all of it goes to wind farms in Scotland. That cost is shared across every bill in Britain, so households here pay for it too: about £92 a year per household, £4.1m across the constituency's 44,991 homes.
Ranks 270 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watling Street, Caddington - Solar FarmChiltern Renewables Hockliffe Limited | Solar | 7,100 homes 20 MW |
Approved less than a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
| Astral Green - Wind Turbine, Solar Array & Battery EArnold White Estates Limited | Solar | 800 homes 2.1 MW |
Approved 2 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
| Astral Green - Wind Turbine, Solar Array & Battery EArnold White Estates Limited | Onshore wind | 1,300 homes 1.5 MW |
Approved 2 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
What else is in the briefing
- All 3 projects, each with its planning reference and the organisation that holds the next decision
- Every approval a project still needs, and which of them the public can see
- What building them would mean here — community payments, business rates and construction work
- How Luton South and South Bedfordshire compares with its neighbouring constituencies
- Drafted parliamentary questions and letters, filled in with this seat's figures
- 2 story angles for local reporting
- A two-page PDF, and a newsroom edition with the references and who to call