Isleham airmen memorial to be covered by Sunnica solar farm after Miliband approval

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has given the go-ahead to a sprawling solar-farm project that would cover a field near Isleham, Cambridgeshire, long regarded as the resting place of 12 airmen who died attempting to defend the village from destruction in 1949. The Sunnica scheme, described as a 2,500-acre, 15-mile-long solar installation, would extend across parts of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk as part of the government’s net-zero push. The decision, announced as part of a broader review of major green-energy projects, comes despite a Planning Inspectorate finding in 2023 that the site was inappropriate in part due to the possibility of human remains in the field.

The 1949 crash near Isleham remains etched in local memory. On October 13, 1949, a U.S. Air Force Boeing B-50 Superfortress took off from nearby RAF Lakenheath on a practice flight to Heligoland, Germany, laden with 16 500-pound bombs. A fire broke out shortly after takeoff, and the pilot, George Ingham, 27, faced a tragic choice: steer the flaming aircraft away from Isleham and sacrifice his crew and himself to spare the village, or allow the plane to strike the area. The bomber veered away from the town but crashed in a field just outside Isleham, producing a blast that shattered windows at the local primary school and left a lasting scar on the community. Twelve airmen were killed, 11 of them American and one British. The crash site has been cited in annual remembrances, including a 75th-anniversary memorial service held in October 2024 at St Andrew’s Church in Isleham.

[ ""]

As part of the Sunnica project, the plan would place solar panels across the field and surrounding land as a central element of a broader portfolio of countryside solar developments. The developers say the project is designed to harvest electricity on a scale necessary to support the country’s transition away from fossil fuels. They note that geophysical surveys have pinpointed the crash crater, and they have proposed leaving a square of land free from panels around the site and installing a plaque to honor the airmen. Sunnica has stressed that no development would occur within the immediate exclusion zone surrounding the crater, a mitigation intended to respect the site’s historical significance.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said in a statement that it respects the significance of the field for Isleham and the memory of those who died in the 1949 crash. The department added that it supports the developer’s commitment to honor the memory by creating a protected area around the site. In a separate note, Sunnica’s spokesman said the project’s exclusion zone around the crater would remain in place to safeguard the memorial crater’s integrity while enabling the broader solar facility to proceed.

Local residents have voiced anger and disappointment at the prospect of a solar installation at what they describe as a sacred resting place. Linda Dunbavin, 80, whose sisters and cousins were in the school at the time of the crash, told The Mail on Sunday that approving the project amounted to erasing the memory of the airmen. “Ed Miliband is desecrating their blood and bones,” she said. David Brown, 89, who was inside the school when the bomber went down, said the plan feels disrespectful to those who gave their lives. “I’m not pleased about Sunnica building a solar farm over it. It is disrespectful to those men.”

The Sunnica project is among a wave of large-scale solar developments planned across rural Britain as part of the wider net-zero agenda. It is one of several major schemes facing local opposition even as developers emphasize the role of clean energy and the need to balance heritage and climate goals. The 2023 Planning Inspectorate report had warned that the site’s use for development would be inappropriate in part because of the possibility of human remains; the current authorization from the government marks a step forward in the policy push toward large renewable-energy arrays, even as it intensifies scrutiny of how such projects intersect with historic sites and memorial landscapes.

Industry observers note that the Isleham case highlights a broader tension in climate policy: the push to expand renewable energy capacity while protecting places of memory and heritage. Proponents say the solar farm would deliver clean power to thousands of homes and businesses, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, while opponents argue that certain locations warrant preservation in place due to their cultural and historical value. The government’s decision underscores the centrality of energy security and climate targets in its policy calculus, even as local communities weigh the costs of such projects against the value of preserving memory and landscape. The Sunnica plan, with its proposed exclusion zone and memorial plaque, seeks to strike a balance, but residents and historians alike will watch closely how this balance is managed in the years ahead.