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STOP BOTLEY WEST CAMPAIGN, oxfordshire
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  • What's happening now?
  • Presentations from Public Info Events
  • Councils' verdict on BWSF

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BOTLEY WEST SOLAR "FARM"

1,400 hectares, 15+ villages affected, 11 km long, 5km wide

Over 2 million solar panels, 110km of security fencing, 35km footpaths overwhelmed

75% on Green Belt, 40% of panel area is best & most versatile (BMV) land

Within the setting of Blenheim Palace and adjacent to many other heritage assets.

WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW

Deadline 2 (1 July) has now passed. Documents submitted are now available to read on the Inspectorate’s website (138 of them). Deadline 3 is on 22 July when comments on the documents submitted at Deadline 2 can be made.


Please find a moment to read some of these and respond by 22 July.


We particularly encourage you to read:

  1. SBW’s written submission which includes comments on the Joint Council’s local impact report (LIR), other written representations and nominations for accompanied site visits. HERE
  2. SBW’s Community Impact Report. HERE
  3. The answers (mostly by the Applicant, PVDP) to the Examining Authority’s (ExA) first set of written questions HERE and their request for some mostly minor changes (reductions) in the panel area. HERE
  4. Responses from the Oxfordshire Host Authorities (OHA) comprising Cherwell, WODC, Vale of White Horse District Councils plus Oxfordshire County Council. HERE
  5. Responses from other important bodies e.g. Historic England, ICOMOS (UNESCO), and from other organisations or individuals you know and trust. Search by name HERE

  

Your response may be endorse or expand on a point you agree with or to disagree with the answers and responses given. Please send all your comments through the “Have your Say” link to the Inspectorate. Remember to clearly reference the document and numbered paragraph that you are responding to.

  

It is important that as many relevant comments from SBW supporters as possible are submitted. Please do this by 22 July. (Deadline 3)


You can respond HERE or by e-mailing BotleyWestSolar@planninginspectorate.gov.uk

PUBLIC INFORMATION EVENTS

Stop Botley West recently organised 3 events where Professor Alex Rogers, Chair of SBW provided an update on the stage that we’re currently at in the examination, what happens next, what SBW have been working on and how the funds raised so far are being used.


The two presentations from these events are shown below (Update from Prof Alex Rogers and Community Impact Report).

Update from Prof Alex Rogers

Community Impact Report

Councils' verdict on BWSF

A Positive Update: West Oxfordshire District Council Calls for Significant Reduction in Botley West Site in their Written Representation Submitted on 4 June.


Please submit your comments to PINS in support.


Needless to say, Botley West is no ordinary proposal. It's sheer size and unrelenting footprint is what stands it apart from the countless other large scale solar proposals currently vying for approval across the country. The proposed site location, our home, is graced with wide open fields, undulating river valleys and accompanying views, productive agricultural land, a myriad of public rights of way, a world famous UNESCO world heritage site and of course us – its residents.


At times, it has felt like local voices don’t matter. Consultations have too often felt like a box-ticking exercise, where being heard is not the same as being listened to. 


The sheer scale and sprawl of this scheme is simply not acceptable. 


But we can now say that our concerns have been legitimised through the meticulous, fact-based assessment from West Oxfordshire District Council in their recent Written Representation. 


That’s why we are pleased to see WODC’s call to drastically reduce the proposed size of Botley West Solar Farm represented in their revised map here:

Quote taken from Vale of White Horse DC Written Representation 

Map from West Oxfordshire DC Written Representation 

  

The evidence WODC has submitted to the Planning Inspectorate is compelling as they have examined the case for removing areas of panels based on heritage, landscape and visual, flooding and agricultural land quality issues.


Read WODC’s full Written Representation here.


In addition, the Joint Local Impact Report, prepared by WODC with Cherwell, the Vale, and Oxfordshire County Council, summarises the impact of the project as follows: 

The Local Impact Report (LIR) - a thorough and detailed document of over 180 pages - lays out clear reasons, with evidence, how and why they have judged each impact to be either negative or neutral with none seen as positive.


Read the full LIR here. 


Please also see the Written Representation submitted by Stop Botley West here.


By the deadline of 1 July, SBW will be submitting our Community Impact Report in a supportive response to the Joint Council’s Local Impact Report.


We are therefore asking that our supporters in the community also write to the Planning Inspectorate to share your support of both WODC’s Written Representation and of the Joint Local Impact Report. Please visit the ‘Have Your Say’ section of the PINS website to submit your comments by 1st July.

dco application now available to view

The DCO Application is now on the Planning Inspectorate’s (PINS) website - all 244 documents!

 To help you navigate this mammoth collection we have produced a contents list with links to these documents.


  1. We suggest you start by reading the Non-Technical summary here, then
  2. Quickly find the chapter or topic that particularly interests you in this contents list with links and click the link to jump straight to it 

OUR FUNDRAISING TARGET

We're fundraising to engage expert advice as we respond to the Botley West proposal. Can you help?

Fundraising Update 5th March 2025


It was really wonderful to see so many of you at our recent public information events in Cumnor, Cassington and Long Hanborough and we’d like to thank you for your generosity, both with your time and donations.


We are happy to announce that we have now raised just over £116,000 out of our target £150,000. Your donations are already being well spent on our Planning Consultant and Experts in landscape and heritage and we will soon be able to share Stop Botley West’s Relevant Representation which has been the culmination of much hard work by the team on behalf of SBW.


Please continue to support the campaign if and when you can. If all those due to be affected by Botley West can contribute even a small amount, we can certainly reach our target!  Please donate here.

DONATE TODAY

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

  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

  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?

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.

  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’.

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