Anger in the green belt as Camilla’s son-in-law tries to cash in on solar farm based in idyllic countryside village

The father-of-three and his partner Sue have an uninterrupted view across open countryside towards a copse and a village church.

In summer, hot-air balloons occasionally cross the horizon, to the delight of the couple’s daughter and two sons.

‘We bought this place because the exceptional rural position made it an ideal family home,’ Nick, 53, says.

But now this idyll is threatened. For this spot of countryside has been identified by the Duchess of Cornwall’s son-in-law as the perfect place to put a sprawling solar-power farm on 50 acres of green belt land.

If planning approval is given, Nick’s family’s view will become little more than a towering new hedge — specially planted to conceal endless rows of 8ft-high solar panels mounted on steel posts.

This ‘green power’ project, outside the Hertfordshire village of Knebworth, is one of hundreds that developers are planning across Britain as they try to cash in on lucrative Government subsidies for large renewable energy plants.

Such schemes are part of the controversial drive for more green energy projects — such as wind turbines and solar farms — by a Whitehall that seems in thrall to the climate-change and environmental lobby.

But this week, Liz Truss, the Environment Secretary, took the brave step of denouncing solar-panel farms as an ‘ugly blight on the landscape’. She said there are now 250 such farms in England, covering 10,000 acres.

Her intervention followed comments just days earlier by her Tory predecessor, Owen Paterson, who said that warnings of impending environmental disaster if more renewable energy was not produced were ‘widely exaggerated’.

He added that the Government had pursued a misguided green agenda that is raising energy prices for every household in the country.
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‘In our view, the proposals will result in harm to the landscape, character and openness of the green belt . . . We do not consider that the very special circumstances put forward by the applicant outweigh the damage to the openness of the green belt,’ it concludes.

Solstice denies the CPRE’s claims it misled or ‘spun’ its report.

Meanwhile, there are concerns that Solstice Renewables will prevail because of its connections to the powerful. As well as Prince Charles’s stepson-in-law as director, Sophy Fearnley-Whittingstall, sister of the Old Etonian celebrity chef Hugh, handles public relations for the company.

Then there is Seth Tabatznik, who helps find locations for their solar parks. His father, Anthony, was once estimated to be worth more than £200 million after founding a series of big pharmaceutical firms. Of course, there is the central role played by Eton-educated Harry Lopes — a distant cousin of Princes William and Harry, who will inherit Gnaton Hall in Devon and the 3,000-acre Skelpick estate in the Highlands.

His wedding to Camilla’s daughter in 2006 was attended by both princes, Prince Charles, Kate Middleton, Lady Sarah Chatto (daughter of Princess Margaret) and former deputy prime minister Lord (Geoffrey) Howe.