DECISION DELAYED

Decision Delayed - update and reactions

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:

RESPOND TO MP CALUM MILLER’S LETTER

MP Calum Miller has already criticised SoS’s delay of decision, arguing that “throughout the examination there were repeated and serious questions about the adequacy of the applicant’s work.” and asking “why was the application not refused and the developer invited to return with a more robust and properly evidenced scheme?

Read Calum’s full letter here

Calum’s position is proved entirely right by the unprecedented number of issues raised in SoS’s letter and its highly unusual call for a complete redesign at the decision stage after such a thorough examination.

WHAT YOU CAN DO - NOW

Write to Calum supporting his action and expressing your concerns that proper process has not been followed in allowing the Applicant this extra time to address so many outstanding issues. Ask him to forward these concerns to the SoS (this is much more effective than writing to SoS yourself!)

SECRETARY OF STATE’S LETTER PUBLISHED

On 14 April 2026 Secrtary of State (SoS) Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy and Net Zero (DESNZ) published their promised request for “further information” from the Applicant regarding their proposals for Botley West Solar Farm (BWSF).

This letter contains an unprecedented number of over 70 questions asking not just for minor clarifications but for a wholesale reassessment and redesign of the proposal.

Read the summary of topics below and the whole letter here

The Applicant and named interested parties have until 9 June 2026 to submit their answers. Shortly afterwards those answers will be published and there will be an opportunity for everyone else to respond to those answers.

We are advised that, other than those named in the letter, Interested Parties should NOT respond to the questions but WAIT until they have seen the answers.

NB This is a change from the earlier advice published here and in Parish Magazines before clarification from the Inspectorate was received.

While waiting for the answers you may like to read some of the wide ranging questions in the SoS’s letter on the following topics:

Alternatives & Site Selection (Questions 6–7)
Grid connection & substation (Qs 8–14)
Cultural Heritage & Blenheim WHS (Qs 15–22)
Landscape & Visual (LVIA + RVAA) (Qs 23–29)
Soils / BMV land (Qs 30–32)
Ecology (Skylarks, protected species, trees) (Qs 33–43)
Aviation (Qs 44-47)
Socioeconomics and Community Food Growing (48-50)
Minerals and Waste (Qs 51-52)
Flood risk and Drainage (Qs 54-57)
Land, rights & protective provisions (Qs 58–64)
“Without Prejudice Offer” & scheme reduction (Qs 66–72)

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

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

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

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

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?

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’.

DECISION DELAYED

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.