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TOP STORY
- DCO APPLICATION IS IN - WHAT'S NEXT?
- HELP US BOOST OUR FIGHTING FUND
- SBW COVERAGE ON TV AND PRESS
TOP STORY
- DCO APPLICATION IS IN - WHAT'S NEXT?
- HELP US BOOST OUR FIGHTING FUND
- SBW COVERAGE ON TV AND PRESS
OUR FUNDRAISING TARGET
We're fundraising to engage expert advice as we respond to the Botley West proposal. Can you help?
Fundraising Update 17th November 2024
We have been working extremely hard with various media outlets to bring the issue of Botley West to the attention of the whole country. Our campaign against Botley West Solar Farm has had a welcome boost recently with articles and interviews in the Mail Online, Telegraph, Times. Oxford Mail, BBC Radio Oxford and ITV Meridian reaching the entire country and beyond.
As shown by the 500+ comments received on the recent Mail Online article, we are certainly not alone in our concerns that Botley West is not located in the right place. Other issues on people’s minds are that the Blenheim Estate/PVDP application is all about their profits, and that it is likely to have a long-term detrimental effect on local residents, the wider community and the hundreds of thousands of global visitors to Blenheim Palace and Oxfordshire.
We are passionate about continuing to fight to protect this beautiful area and to have our voices heard by the Planning Inspector. We are strongly supported by our barrister, planning consultants and subject matter experts to help us to build the strongest possible case to present during the Planning Inspectorate’s examination of the application as far as our funds allow.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful supporters - we are now very close to reaching our next milestone of £75,000 which will take us half-way to our ultimate target of £150,000.
We believe that the communities who will be affected by this development deserve to be properly represented so that have their voices are heard - so please click on the donate button if you’re able to contribute towards the campaign.
Donations of any size are welcome through our website, but if you are in a position to give a significant donation and would like to know more about what this would help us to achieve, please do get in touch by e-mailing our Chair, Prof Alex Rogers, at alex.rogers@stopbotleywest.com
To those who have donated - thank you! You can read more about our plans here.
Our key objections
It is vast
Solar is least efficient
Loss of arable farmland
Nowhere in the world has a ground mounted solar farm this vast (bigger than Heathrow) been built so near to human habitation (11,000 homes within 1.5km) and for very good health and safety reasons (learn more).
Loss of arable farmland
Solar is least efficient
Loss of arable farmland
It would remove thousands of tons of crops each year at a time of growing concern about food security. 250,000 hectares of unused, south-facing commercial roofs in the UK could be used instead (learn more).
Solar is least efficient
Solar is least efficient
No natural biodiversity gains
There are many better ways to produce green energy. Offshore wind is up to 51% efficient compared with solar panels less than 22% (learn more).
No natural biodiversity gains
Carbon debt maybe never repaid
No natural biodiversity gains
There will be no natural gains for wildlife or the environment. There will be loss of wildlife habitat, increased risk of flooding and 51 miles of 8ft high animal proof security fencing restricting movement (learn more).
Carbon debt maybe never repaid
Carbon debt maybe never repaid
Carbon debt maybe never repaid
Botley West may never pay back the carbon debt it accumulates in the construction, transportation and decommissioning of panels. There is a huge amount of carbon generated in all these operations (learn more).
It is in a special place
Carbon debt maybe never repaid
Carbon debt maybe never repaid
The current plans show Botley West SF could encroach within 100m of Blenheim Palace boundary wall and threaten its UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Historic sites like Sansom’s Platt in Wootton and Churchill’s grave in Bladon Churchyard would also be overwhelmed (learn more).
Disregards Oxford's greenbelt
Disregards Oxford's greenbelt
Disregards Oxford's greenbelt
75% of the proposed site is on greenbelt land which should be protected. It would industrialise the countryside for 40 years and may never be returned to agricultural use (learn more).
Visual impact unprecedented
Disregards Oxford's greenbelt
Disregards Oxford's greenbelt
Solar Panels will be highly visible at ground level from roads and footpaths for visitors and residents alike over an 11 by 3 mile area, It cannot be ‘landscaped to only be seen through gaps in the hedges’ as claimed (learn more).
Who benefits?
Disregards Oxford's greenbelt
Who benefits?
The main financial beneficiaries of this industrialisation of the countryside are overseas developers PVDP (of dubious pedigree) and landowners Blenheim Estate (NOT the Palace itself) (learn more).
what are the right renewables?
The Local Solution
Solar energy should be used specifically to meet local demands and directly benefit local communities, not big landowners and overseas companies.
- Solar panels should be on house, office and warehouse roofs throughout Oxfordshire
- Solar panels should be situated on brown field sites (Didcot Power Station, for example, which is already linked to the Grid).
- Community solar farms should be encouraged. These are funded, designed and run directly under community control, and service just the community resulting in benefits to everyone’s electric bills.
And there are other imaginative means of providing green energy. These are just four:
- Smaller scaled wind turbines can be used locally to serve a community.
- France has designed trees whose ‘leaves’ turn in the wind. One tree can provide an estimated 40% of the annual electricity for a house.
- Switzerland is putting solar panels between the rails of their entire railway network.
- In America, transparent solar ‘windows’ can, experts believe, power 40% of America
The National Solution
As well as a national rollout of these local solutions we have offshore windpower which offers peak electricity in the dark winter months when the UK most needs energy and when solar panels are least efficient. And, of-course, there are other offshore energy sources – wave power, tidal power etc already in use.
Finally, Andrew Tettenborn, Professor of Law at Swansea Law School sums it up in the Spectator: “In the dash for Green Energy “corporate capital is being handed a heaven- sent opportunity at the expense of you, me and the country we live in at least as regards solar power (Government policy) is not working for the benefit of the people ……..
but instead seems to favour a more international clientele.”
All of this means we don’t need old fashioned, large scale, inefficient solar ‘farms’.
