Bishop Auckland
Bishop Auckland has 52 MW of clean power (almost all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 19,000 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, £3.9m across the constituency's 42,733 homes.
Ranks 120 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bluestone Farm, Low Lands - Solar FarmBluefield Renewable Developments Limited | Solar | 50 MW18,000 homes | Approved 2 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref DM/23/00486/FPA |
| Toronto Green Energy Park, Addison Road - Solar FarmToronto Green Energy Park Limited | Solar | 27 MW9,800 homes | Applied in 2026, still waiting for a decisionWho can move it: County Durham Council · planning ref DM/26/00218/FPA |
| Barnard Castle - Solar Farm & Battery Storage SystemFarm Energy Company | Solar | 16 MW5,800 homes | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref DM/23/02510/FPA |
| Barnard Castle - Solar Farm & Battery Storage SystemFarm Energy Company | Battery | 4 MW | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref DM/23/02510/FPA |
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bishop Auckland | 52 MW | 8 MW | not visible |
| Richmond and Northallerton | 111 MW | 71 MW | not visible |
| Darlington | 84 MW | 6.2 MW | not visible |
| Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor | 47 MW | 45 MW | not visible |
| City of Durham | 1.1 MW | 34 MW | not visible |
| North Durham | 0.9 MW | 28 MW | not visible |
Richmond and Northallerton next door has 111 MW waiting, more than Bishop Auckland's 52 MW.
The rest of the briefing
- Every approval each project still needs, and which of them the public can see
- What building them would mean here — community payments, business rates and construction work
- Drafted parliamentary questions and letters, filled in with this seat's figures
- 3 story angles for local reporting
- A two-page PDF, and a newsroom edition with the references and who to call
Everything above needs no account, and neither does the full seat page, the method or this constituency's raw data. The account covers the packaged briefing and its PDF, and nothing else.