You won planning for a solar site. That was months ago, maybe years. Since then: nothing. No grid date you can rely on, no buyer, no build.

This is far more common than it looks from the outside, and your options are better than doing nothing. Here is the honest picture.

You are not unusual

Across the UK there are over 300 ground-mount solar sites between 1MW and 20MW that have planning consent but have not been built, adding up to roughly 2.2GW. They are held by a long tail of owners, and most of those owners have exactly one site.

That matters, because it tells you something about why your site has stalled. It is usually not the site. It is that a single site, held by someone without a grid team and a funding line, is hard to move on its own.

Why sites stall

  • The grid date. The most common reason by a distance. A connection date in the 2030s makes a project very hard to sell or fund.
  • Grid reform moved the goalposts. Under connections reform, projects now need secured land rights and a submitted planning application to hold a good queue position. Sites that sat still lost ground to sites that did not.
  • Build cost and financing. A consented site still needs construction funding, and lenders want a firm connection date before they commit.
  • No route to a buyer. Projects are not advertised. If you do not already know the funds and independent power producers who buy, your site is invisible to them. See how solar farms are bought and sold.
  • A missing piece. One out-of-date survey, an unclear access right or a short lease can stop a sale on its own.

This is the part people miss. A planning consent is not permanent.

In England and Wales, a full planning permission normally has to be begun within three years, unless the decision notice sets a different period. If it is not, it lapses and you are back to a field.

  • Check the decision notice for the exact wording and date.
  • Check whether any pre-commencement conditions have to be discharged before work can lawfully start. These take time, and they are a common reason a “live” consent is closer to dead than the owner thinks.
  • A lapsed consent is not the end, but re-applying means today’s policy, today’s constraints and today’s survey costs.

If you do one thing after reading this, find your decision notice and check the date.

Four options

What it means Best when
Sit on it Do nothing and hope the grid date improves Rarely the right answer. The consent clock keeps running
Sell as it is Market the site at its current stage You want out, and the grid date is decent
Add value, then sell Fix the weak link first, then go to buyers The site is sound but one thing is holding the price down
Bring in a partner Someone funds and runs the rest for a share You want the upside but not the cost or the work

The middle two are where most of the money is. A consented site with a poor grid date and a thin paperwork pack sells at a heavy discount, if it sells at all. The same site with the grid position sorted and a clean data room is a different asset.

You do not need to improve a site across the board. You need to find the one thing a buyer will price you down for, and deal with it. Usually that is one of:

  • The grid position. A better connection date, or a clear, costed route to one, moves the price more than anything else.
  • The land rights. Buyers want an option and lease long enough for the whole project life, with access and cable routes nailed down.
  • The paperwork. Surveys that have expired, conditions not discharged, documents in five different inboxes.

How solar farms are valued sets out what buyers pay at each stage and what moves the number.

The move most people miss: add a battery

Of those 300-plus consented, unbuilt sites, around four in five have no battery alongside them.

Adding battery storage to a site that already has solar consent is often the single biggest value move available, because:

  • The grid connection is shared, so you are adding earning capacity without starting again at the back of the queue.
  • A battery lets the site store cheap power and sell it when the grid needs it, instead of only exporting when the sun is out.
  • In England, battery storage is decided by the local planning authority whatever its size, so it does not drag the project into the national infrastructure regime.
  • The footprint is small, and you already have the access, the survey work and the local relationships.

It is not free and it is not automatic. It needs a planning application, a grid variation and a proper look at noise, flood risk and fire safety. But on a site that is otherwise stuck, it is the option most worth pricing. See battery storage development.

What to do this month

  1. Find the decision notice. Confirm the start-by date and list the pre-commencement conditions.
  2. Pull your grid paperwork together. The offer, its milestones, the connection date and the costs.
  3. Check the land agreement runs long enough, with access and cable rights included.
  4. Get an honest view of the grid and planning position before you talk to buyers, not after.

What we do

We take sites from a bare field to ready-to-build, and we also pick up sites that have stalled. That can mean sorting the grid position, adding a battery to an existing consent, getting the paperwork into one place, or buying in and running the rest ourselves.

If you own a consented site that has not moved, tell us where it is and we will give you a straight answer on what it needs and what it is worth.

Talk to us about a stalled site → · Development to ready-to-build → · Fund or co-develop with us →

Sources

Facts last checked 2 November 2026. This is general guidance, not legal or planning advice. Always check your own decision notice.