DECISION DELAYED

Following the announcement that the Secretary of State (SoS) Ed Miliband has delayed the decision on Botley West from 10 May 2026 to 10 September 2026, we can now give you a little more information - and some reactions to the announcement.

The decision to delay is partially good news for us as it almost certainly means that the Examiners have recommended refusal (otherwise one might expect it to be rubber stamped by SoS immediately). This is the first and only application submitted since Miliband became SoS at the Department for Energy and Net Zero (DESNEZ) where a decision has been delayed and there are clearly still unanswered questions - as Stop Botley West, Local Authorities and many other interested parties have been saying for some time. It appears that the SoS is giving PVDP even longer to put their house in order and come up with the missing information.

It is galling that PVDP are being given a second (actually 4th or 5th!) chance to get it right.  Our only comfort is that this causes further delay for them and they may still not be able to answer the questions satisfactorily. Nevertheless, their application, as it stood at the end of the examination period, should have been rejected outright. Calum Miller, MP for Bicester & Woodstock, has made a very powerful statement saying this and he has also written a letter to DESNEZ to express his concerns on our behalf and asking for a meeting with relevant ministers.  

Calum’s Statement  

“Today’s Botley West delay speaks volumes. Ministers have kicked the decision down the road because they still need more information from the developer and more time for others to consider it. After a process this long, that is a damning reflection on the quality of the application and suggests the Planning Inspectorate recommended against it. Ministers should have rejected it and told PVDP to come back with a better scheme, not given them more time.”

Chair, Prof Alex Roger’s Statement for SBW

"It became clear during the Examination phase that the Planning Inspectorate team was not satisfied with a number of PVDP’s responses to requests for further information. We welcome the Secretary of State’s decision to seek further information from the Applicant, and to allow sufficient time for consideration by interested parties such as the Stop Botley West community group."

Follow these links to read more:

• SoS Statement
• ITV News Article
• Calum’s Letter to DESNEZ  

The Local Solution

Solar energy should be used specifically to meet local demands and directly benefit local communities, not big landowners and overseas companies.

1. Solar panels should be on house, office and warehouse roofs throughout Oxfordshire
2. Solar panels should be situated on brown field sites (Didcot Power Station, for example, which is already linked to the Grid).
3. 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’.