PLANS to cut subsidies to clean energy schemes will cost jobs in Dorset, it has been claimed.

The government intends to slash the money paid to home-owners and businesses producing power from rooftop solar panels and small wind turbines.

The proposals would remove up to 87 per cent of the subsidy to solar panels from January 2016. Subsidy schemes would also be closed to new entrants from the next year.

Simon Booth, managing director of east Dorset's Renewable Energy Investments (REI), said the review of the Feed-in Tarrif (FiT) scheme would create turmoil in the industry.

He said: “The changes are the latest and most damaging of a recent series of hostile actions taken by the Conservative government across the renewables sector.”

He added: “We believe the FIT support should continue to fall as solar becomes cheaper to deploy, but through a structured and well managed subsidy scheme.

“Instead, the government evidently plans to remove support entirely.”

He said the move would hit schools, businesses and hospitals which had been seeking to cut their electricity costs by becoming generators themselves.

He added: “The Conservative manifesto made no mention of plans to attack the British solar industry, which has flourished thanks to overwhelming public support and delivered unprecedented efficiency improvements.”

Green Business Dorset, which produces events, training and an e-magazine supporting environmental management, said the cuts would hit take-up of renewables and cost jobs in the county.

Lynda Daniels, editor of Green Business Dorset, said: “The industry was well aware the subsidy would not remain in place indefinitely. However, based on an expected phase-out strategy, private companies have invested heavily in the sector and the future of their businesses.

“This investment will include technology, training, products, staff, facilities, marketing – and they will most certainly feel the rug has been pulled out from beneath their efforts.”

She added: “I was shocked at this announcement; as are the companies I have spoken to that are affected from across our county.”

Environment secretary Amber Rudd has defended the plans, saying the FiT scheme needed review after the costs of solar power fell.

She said: "We have made better progress in deploying renewable energy than we could possibly have imagined. But we have to balance that success with limiting the impact on people's bills."