£11m project to install thousands of solar panels at Lakeside Northarbour in Portsmouth gets go-ahead

'This is another example of how this authority is taking the climate emergency seriously by installing solar panels on a site that it owns,' Councillor Darren Sanders said at its meeting on Wednesday. 'I look forward to it reducing our carbon emissions and our costs.'

Under this project, the council will install almost 2,000 panels on the roof of the building and a further 11,000 on car park canopies providing up to 5,900 kwp.

The council said that this would save the equivalent of 1,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year by replacing more polluting methods of producing electricity.

Despite the councillors' decision, final permission cannot be given until the end of the month because the council failed to publish the required press notice when submitting the application.