A Derbyshire climate activist is no longer going to be pursued to remove solar panels they unlawfully installed after a six-year dispute that has included the threat of prison time.
After six years of increasingly serious disputes, Derbyshire Dales District Council has dropped its enforcement action against Mary Smail, who unlawfully installed solar panels on her home in Church Street, Ashbourne.
Ms Smail, a climate activist with Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain, installed 16 solar panels on her Grade-II listed home in Ashbourne’s conservation area in 2019 and has ardently resisted all steps to remove them.
This culminated in Ms Smail being taken to court in 2023 and ordered to take them down by June 2023 and pay the council’s legal costs or face up to two years in prison.
At the time, Ms Smail, who spent £10,000 on legal fees and is still in the process of paying the council back in instalments for its £9,700 in fees, had committed to taking the panels down.
Two years later and the solar panels remain but the council has now decided, in private session at a planning committee meeting this month, not to take any further enforcement action and to close the case, a spokesperson confirmed.
Ms Smail, aged 65, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I am terrifically relieved because it has been a massive strain.
“Everybody’s been worried about the penalties that might have been incurred on this. It has been a very dangerous course of action as protests go.
“It was a protest from the outset. I didn’t do it out of ignorance of the planning law.
“I did it out of wanting to challenge the council’s take on their declaration of a climate emergency.
“I wanted to open a discussion on the fact that if it is an emergency they need to be changing their policies otherwise there is no emergency, if people aren’t willing to make a change in how things are done.
“As well as being terrifically relieved on a personal level because the prospect of spending two years in prison and potentially losing all your assets is not exactly one you want to be facing in your mid 60s.
“I would be very happy if the council would enter some sort of open discussion about what the implications of their declaration of a climate emergency actually signify.
“In the future, how are they going to assess the merits of the detriments of giving planning permission for things which help reduce people’s household use of fossil fuels through better insulation, updating their heating systems or any other measures the council should be taking?”
A council spokesperson had said in December 2022: “Throughout this process, which started in September 2019, we have tried to engage with Mrs Smail to resolve this matter in a manner that did not result in excessive expense and time to both parties.
“Her home is a listed building located in the Ashbourne Conservation Area, and when Mrs Smail first contacted us to ask if the installation of solar panels needed planning permission we replied in detail. We explained that planning permission was required and which criteria had to be met in these special circumstances to preserve the historic special interest of the property and also that she had to demonstrate that the proposal had net environmental benefit.
“However, despite our best advice, Mrs Smail chose not to apply for planning permission and the panels were installed early in 2020. Even at that stage we invited her to make an application, but none was received.
“We, therefore, had no choice but to serve an enforcement notice in March 2020 for the removal of the panels due to their harm to heritage assets. Mrs Smail could have appealed at this stage, but she didn’t.
“An application was then made to the courts for an injunction to require the removal of the panels. Again we engaged with Mrs Smail and granted her extra time to submit a retrospective planning application.
“This was eventually submitted in February 2021 and rejected by the district council’s planning committee on the basis that the panels fail to preserve the special architectural interest and significance of the Grade-II listed building and the character and appearance of the Conservation Area. Mrs Smail did not exercise her right to appeal and the application for an injunction was restarted.
“During the application process Mrs Smail was asked to agree a settlement to remove the panels and pay reduced costs, but she did not engage with us. The application was heard at Nottingham Crown Court. Mrs Smail did not attend and the application for an injunction was granted, requiring the removal of the panels by June 2023.”
The council’s planning committee, rejecting a planning application in September 2021, had felt that the panels “introduced an alien shape, grouping, texture and reflective quality” into the conservation area and that the “modest general public benefit of the installation was clearly outweighed by the harm caused to the heritage assets”.
Mary Smail and the solar panels she unlawfully installed on her home in Church Street, Ashbourne, in 2019. Image from Mary
