Clacton
Clacton has 64 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 23,000 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, £4.2m across the constituency's 45,395 homes.
Ranks 105 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thorpe Park Solar Farm, Thorpe Le Soken - Solar FarmLow Carbon UK Solar Investment Co Limited | Solar | 40 MW15,000 homes | Approved 3 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 22/02117/FUL |
| Halstead Road Eco Hub - Solar Farm & Battery StorageNaturalis Energy Developments Limited | Solar | 26 MW9,400 homes | Refused by Tendring Council in 2022Who can move it: Tendring Council · planning ref 21/02181/FUL |
| Hartley Wood Farm - Solar FarmBluefield Renewable Developments Limited/Anglo Renewables | Solar | 22 MW8,200 homes | Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 22/00518/FUL |
| Clay Lane, St Osyth - Solar FarmLighthouse Development Consulting Limited | Solar | 20 MW7,300 homes | Approved less than a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 25/00939/FUL |
Plus 1 smaller projects — see the full seat page.
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clacton | 64 MW | 48 MW | not visible |
| Harwich and North Essex | 21 MW | 68 MW | not visible |
Clacton has more approved-and-waiting capacity than any of its neighbouring seats.
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.