A SOLAR park planned for the outskirts of Weymouth is on hold awaiting a government spending review.

Engineering company Wessex Solar Energy was looking at a 40 acre site at North farm in Buckland Ripers that could produce enough energy to power 1,500 homes.

The park, which could have brought with it up to 50 jobs, could have seen thousands of crystalline panels placed on one metre tall posts in farmland.

Sheep would then have been able to graze around the land but lambs would not have been able to jump into the panels.

The energy generated by the park, approximately five megawatts, would have fed into the local grid allowing ‘local people to use local energy’.

Director of Wessex Solar Energy Ron Owen said: “It’s about producing energy locally that will then be used locally by local people.

"People would also see benefits, as all the business rates from the park will go to the local councils and not central government.

“This will in turn create an industry in itself as it will bring the price of panels down and local people will then consider putting them on their roofs.”

Developers had hoped to submit a planning application for the park as soon as possible but have had to put plans on hold because of uncertainly over funding from central government.

Mr Owen said: “We were very close to putting in planning permission on the Buckland Ripers site but if we don’t know if the government will back the scheme we don’t want to waste a significant amount of money, around £30,000, for a planning application.”

He added: “Because the industry and banks don’t know what the government is going to do or if they are going to give subsidies for solar park sites there is uncertainly in the industry.

“People have gone whole heatedly into achieving a significant amount of renewable energy in the South West.

"People inside and outside the country are prepared to invest in what seemed to be what the government wanted and as soon as they got into power they changed their minds.”

Mr Owen added that the company would have to wait to see the outcome of a government review before they submitted a planning application.

He said his company wanted to start building quickly so that soon the UK could make 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources.

He said: “Global warming is a fact – if you believe it’s because of carbon emissions or from the sun’s cycle.

“We need to stop our reliance on fossil fuel from unstable resources.

“Oil prices are rising and we are dependent on a finite resource we need to get better and clever at making energy.”