Energy: Will the sun shine on Botley West Solar Farm?

With a government determined to “sprint towards clean, homegrown energy”, it’s a good time to be an investor in solar farms.

Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy, has made no secret of his support for onshore solar – a stark contrast to his Conservative predecessors. He approved three solar farms shortly after coming into office in July. In September, he said “Every solar farm we reject makes us less secure and more exposed. The faster we go, the more secure we become.”

And it is he who will make the decision on Oxfordshire’s proposed colossal solar site, Botley West Solar Farm.

In December of 2024, the Planning Inspectorate accepted the Botley West Solar Farm proposal for examination. As a “national infrastructure project”, the decision will be made by the Secretary of State rather than by local councils. The decision is expected within 18 months, with anticipated completion and connection to the National Grid by autumn 2028.

Yet not everyone in Oxfordshire is so keen to join the sprint.

Green fields or green energy?

Botley West Solar Farm’s proposed generation capacity is 840MW – enough to power 330,000 homes, just shy of the 388,000 homes Oxfordshire is projected to have in 10 years time. Both the UK and Oxfordshire have ambitious targets to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050: advocates of solar farms claim them to be the most cost-effective way of reaching this target.

840MW requires a lot of solar panels… and a lot of space. 3,200 acres of space on a site 11 miles long and 4 miles wide, with 110km of security fencing and two million solar panels. 75% of it is in Oxford’s green belt, currently used for arable or pasture farming.

The land is owned by the Blenheim Estate – broadly speaking, the non-tourist operations of Blenheim Palace. It comprises a southern site adjacent to Cumnor and the Farmoor reservoir; a central site bordering Church Hanborough, Cassington, Bladon, and Blenheim Palace itself (a UNESCO World Heritage Site); and a northern site between Wootton and Tackley. To further complicate things, it lies on land within the administrative areas of Cherwell District Council (LibDem+Green) , West Oxfordshire District Council (LibDem, Green, Labour), Vale of White Horse District Council (LibDem) and Oxfordshire County Council (LibDem+Green minority). Although none of it is in Oxford City, it’s not far from the border, so many Labour city councillors have an opinion on it too. And we haven't even mentioned the MPs yet.

Each council has a different Local Plan, with some parish-level Neighbourhood Plans sitting underneath them, but that might not matter. This is deemed a ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project’, so the decision is taken out of the councils’ hands. Instead, central Government will call the shots, via the Planning Inspectorate – and as Oxford City, South Oxfordshire and West Oxfordshire have all found recently, central Government is no shrinking violet when it comes to overruling local planning opinions.

It may be easier to herd the sheep they are planning to graze under the solar panels than to herd the proverbial political cats on this one.

What’s proposed?

Panels will cover the land on the three sites. Cables will be laid in trenches under the ground, then covered and grassed over. The cables will take the electricity generated on to a substation and connect up to the existing National Grid 400kV line that runs between Cowley in Oxford and Walham in Gloucestershire. (Regular Clarion readers will already be aware of the advantages of a hotline to the National Grid.)

That’s why, although the solar farm would span a 12-mile length of Oxfordshire, it’s been named Botley West; that’s where the substation and grid connection will be. Utilitarian naming or sleight of hand to assure Woodstock residents that it’s a long way away? You decide.

Under and around the panels, the land will be grazed by sheep, or cut back to produce compost. Away from the panels, hedgerows, trees and scrubland will be planted both to improve biodiversity and provide screening. Areas among the panels will be left clear for skylark plots, because how better to demonstrate your sincere affinity with the English countryside than by summoning the spirit of Vaughan Williams. [Non-Technical Summary document, 6.3.15]

As is standard for solar farm projects, the permission being sought is temporary, but long-term. Consent is sought for a 42-year period covering construction, operation and decommissioning. [5.6.1]

This is not a remote rural site where the only residents are the skylarks. To sweeten the deal for local residents, the developers have proposed a package of “community benefits”. These include:

• Allocating areas of the site for allotments and community arable farming
• Offering grazing on the site to local sheep farmers
• Creating a retail energy company to sell discounted energy generated by the site to local residents.
• Establishing a 'community benefit fund' for local projects
• Working with community groups to help alleviate food poverty via locally grown food
• Aiming to create 70% biodiversity net gain
• Creating a network of footpaths and cycle paths

Sparks fly

This gift list, needless to say, has not convinced all local residents. A campaign group called Stop Botley West is doing most of the running, having raised £100,000 to engage expert advice. They marshal ten arguments against the solar farm, or what they call “uncomfortable truths”:

1. It will be ugly. Stop Botley West claims planned screening will be insufficient because “much of the affected land is undulating or hilly”.
2. Size. SBW claim nowhere in the world has such a large ground-mounted solar farm built so near to human habitation (11,000 homes within 1.5km) – and as a result, there is no data on impact (wellbeing, tourism, employment, property and land values). They claim “It is inconceivable that none of these would be affected and equally inconceivable that any would be affected for the better.”
3. Loss of arable farmland. 45% of the proposed site is on 'Best and Most Versatile' arable land, taking out 8,000 tonnes from the UK's food supply at a time of concern around food security.
4. Heritage. Blenheim Palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The current plan shows the site as within 100m of the Blenheim Palace boundary wall. The campaign group reports that UNESCO believes the setting of the site has an impact on this status, specifically citing solar farms.
5. Green Belt. 75% of the proposed site is in the Oxford Green Belt. The application is for a 40 year lease, plus decommissioning; campaigners say “it may never be returned to agriculture”.
6. Carbon debt. They say the emissions from manufacture, installation and removal of the site may never be repaid.
7. Biodiversity. Stop Botley West claim there will be no “natural” biodiversity gains since the site will effectively be turned into a light industrial site, with biodiversity re-engineered back into it.
8. Efficiency. Large scale solar farms are the “least efficient” way of producing energy, they claim, compared to nuclear power or offshore wind farms.
9. Commercial interests. Stop Botley West say the landowners and Botley Solar Farm operators will gain the most from the venture.
10. Alternatives. They propose solar on rooftops, solar panels between railway lines, wind power and wave power.

Of course, this line of thought isn’t universally held, even locally. One dissenting voice, a parody website called Botley West Nimbys, satirises each of these points:

Look, our place is much more special than yours, so you should have all the stuff we don't like near YOU. We've got Oxford. Have you got Oxford? I don't think so. And Churchill's GRAVE. If he rises from the dead to do a famine on India again, do you think he'll want to see solar panels? No! He'll want to drink champagne and be racist.

But it also has a lengthy ‘Behind the Curtain’ section, a more serious attempt to counter Stop Botley West’s claims – for example, by citing a study that reports “Solar is already the cheapest form of energy in history according to the International Energy Agency.”

Which side are you on?

One single Clarion explainer is clearly not going to change entrenched opinions. But perhaps some claims would benefit from a little more sunlight. We put the objections to Mark Owen-Lloyd, a director of Botley West Solar Farm.

Foremost among locals’ concerns is the visual impact: “ugly”, large, and near a World Heritage Site. There is no dispute that it will be large. But Owen-Lloyd says it will be extensively screened:

“Historic England have agreed with us we're not doing any harm to any part of the World Heritage Site. We've been to the top of the Column of Victory [at Blenheim Palace] – you cannot see any of our panels from anywhere within the park wall.

“We've been really careful to put the panels in the places they'll be seen the least. Walking on public footpaths in some places you will see them – the nature of the footpaths will change, we absolutely accept that. But we're not seeking to carpet the area. We've leased 1,400 hectares and we're covering just 900.”

Footpath access, he says, forms a big part of the community benefit proposition.

“For the next 40 years we control these fields. Blenheim have a pretty enlightened view of public access but we will increase it significantly. There are new footpaths being built: a circular footpath around Cassington, a footpath up the Evenlode Valley, a bridge over the Evenlode that will allow you to go from Cassington up to Hanborough – that will become a new footpath. There's a footpath from Bladon to Campsfield which will be upgraded to a cycle track, a bridleway. Added to Blenheim's new cycle path from Combe, you'll be able to cycle to Oxford without going on a public road! There's huge opportunities to do interesting things.”

Perhaps the most commonly cited objection to large-scale solar farms is that solar panels should be placed on rooftops. Owen-Lloyd says he has some sympathy with that view.

“People say ‘why are there no panels on the roofs at Salt Cross?’ [the new garden village at Eynsham]. But there's no planning compulsion to put the panels on – the planners kicked that out. Yes, we should be building houses that are fit for the future: to build 2500 houses with gas central heating and no solar panels makes no sense. But when West Oxfordshire District Council demanded solar panels, the developer appealed to the Planning Inspectorate and won.

“So what can we say when people say ‘put panels on the 2500 roofs at Salt Cross?’. You have to speak to your MP!”

For many of the claims and counter-claims, it’s a matter of weighing up the numbers on each side. Stop Botley West say 8,000 tonnes will be taken out of the food supply. The UK produces 24 million tonnes, a figure that has been increasing since 2020. Is a decrease in food supply of 0.03% worth it to move 1% of Britain’s energy capacity to renewables? Your call.

Other points of disagreement come down simply to who you believe. Large infrastructure projects can, and do, benefit biodiversity: our feature on Abingdon Reservoir tomorrow will look at Kielder Water, a reservoir and nature reserve in Northumberland, and Barnes Wetland, a Site of Special Scientific Interest recouped from three former concrete reservoirs in West London. Do you believe Botley West will fulfil its promises and planning obligations? Your call.

There is a “yes, and” to much of the debate. The Clarion wouldn’t tell you what to believe, but our editorial policy, uncontroversially, is and has always been that emissions need to come down. The UN says that too: “Emissions need to go down now, and be cut by almost half by 2030.” That means looking for all alternatives. Rooftop solar? Offshore wind farms? New technologies such as small nuclear? We are probably too late to pick and choose, and we simply don't have enough rooftops available to cover all our electrical needs. Many commentators believe that solar panel efficiency will be greatly improved after the project’s lifespan of 40 years, reducing the land take – but we do not have 40 years to wait.

And sometimes there is actually a simple answer. The US Department of Energy estimates that the carbon debt of sites is paid back in 1-4 years. The landowners and Botley West Solar Farm operators will benefit financially: that too is a simple answer. But given that Britain’s energy industry was privatised in the 1980s, this should not come as a shock to anyone.

Personalities and politics

Disagreements over the policy and the science can be resolved. The job of the Planning Inspectorate, which will decide on the application, is to cast light on these. But the personalities and finances behind both promoters and opponents remain rather more shadowy.

Botley West’s backers have been put under the microscope by Private Eye. The project will be delivered by Solar Five, the UK holding company for Photovolt Development Partners (PVDP). PVDP is registered in Germany, but owned by Cyprus company Cranssetta Investments Ltd. The sole shareholder is a Yulia Lezhen, who is Cypriot. The Private Eye article referred to her now deceased husband Dmitry Glukhov, alleging that he was the primary beneficial owner of a goldfield development company that borrowed $58m from Uralsib Bank – or, according to the Eye, “syphoned off the ill-gotten gains of a goldfield scam”.

The previous MP for Witney, Robert Courts (who himself received money from a donor of Russian origin), raised these concerns. Oxford West & Abingdon MP Layla Moran has raised them once again, in the context of the war in Ukraine. The political climate right now is, understandably, not sympathetic to investors of Russian origin. Mark Owen-Lloyd is robust in his defence:

“It's not illegal to be Russian. 15% of the gas we use in Britain is LNG from Russia. Russia is not always treated as the pariah that Governments would have you believe, because we need their gas.

“But if you are an ally of Putin you will be on the UK sanctions list. Yulia is a Cypriot resident; she's a EU citizen. She was married to a Russian citizen who left Russia because of Putin. He died two years ago. She is entirely above board. We have been subject to due diligence from Ofgem, from our lawyers Pinsent Mason… they're regulated by the Solicitors' Regulatory Authority. If they thought we weren't in any way above board they wouldn't work with us. I wrote letters to Richard Brooks at Private Eye rebutting their allegations – they've never printed any of them. If there were any truth to any of this we wouldn't be able to proceed.”

In turn, Stop Botley West’s background has come under some scrutiny. “Campaigning magazine” The Lead looked into their supporters:

The Churchill family, dodgy science, dodgier election leaflets, NIMBYs, anti-NIMBYs and Net Zero all converge on a plot "the size of Heathrow" earmarked for enough solar panels to power 300,000 homes. But who is paying for the lobbyist meant to turn Parliament against the project? 

There are few names on the Stop Botley West website: only their chair Alex David Rogers, formerly an Oxford Professor of Conservation Biology. The Clarion is not, for obvious reasons, going to criticise SBW for being largely anonymous. But The Lead has listed several of the group’s members. Most eyebrow-raising is the Duke of Marlborough, owner of the Blenheim Estate on which the solar farm is to be built. (The estate itself is run by trustees.)

Political backers include the chair of the Oxford Independent Alliance, Anne Gwinnett; Clarion readers will be familiar with with her views on climate change. Also on board, claim The Lead, are former Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council (and Bladon resident) Ian Hudspeth; Liberal Democrat councillor and West Oxfordshire District Council cabinet member Tim Sumner; and chair of Hanborough Parish Council, Richard Devereux-Cooke. The Lead repeated Twitter reporting of a presentation by Devereux-Cooke and Gwinnett in July 2023 as “the Climate Change Denier’s Greatest Hits… Devereux-Cooke reportedly ‘blamed water vapour and natural processes for global warming’.”

Politics is a tough game to play

Does it matter? If Ed Miliband will make the final decision on national grounds, what weight will be given to Oxfordshire views, for or against?

The district councils may not be the final decision makers, but nonetheless they are not being shy in putting their views to Government. Meanwhile Botley West’s Mark Owen-Lloyd says that, as the applicants, they have to demonstrate they have taken account of local views.

“The DCO [Development Consent Order] system was bought in because of Terminal 5 at Heathrow which took 15 years from inception to opening. What it doesn't do is remove the local element.

“So what we have to demonstrate is that we've worked with the local planning authorities, and we've taken into account the views of local people. In the statutory consultation Bladon wanted us to move panels away – if we didn't, we would have to explain to the planning inspectorate why not.

“The ultimate test is: do we meet Government energy policy. But you can't ignore the local element. So we have to explain and show how we've put our panels into fields with the minimum harm. You can see why people say it’s overriding local democracy – Robert Courts said that – but it's pretty clear you cannot obtain a DCO unless you’ve worked with the local planning authorities from the get-go. And they had to judge our public consultation to be adequate.”

Local MPs have no formal role in the process, yet their statements are closely scrutinised. In the case of Botley West these are Layla Moran and Calum Miller, LibDem MPs facing a Tory opposition strident in its disdain for solar farms. While some of the party's savviest operators, they must balance representing their electors – many of whom are sceptical – against advocating for solutions to the climate emergency. Their public lines reflect this conflict.

Calum Miller is MP for Bicester & Woodstock:

“I support the need for a transition away from energy produced from fossil fuels, the emphasis on planning standards to make rooftop solar standard, and the recognition from the Secretary of State that we need a comprehensive approach to land use. Despite this, I share many of the specific concerns expressed to me about the Botley West scheme and I do not support the current proposal. I am very disappointed to learn from a number of sources that, despite writing to the developers to express specific concerns or request specific further information, there has been no response. The recent targeted consultation was a good opportunity to demonstrate to local residents and their representatives that they had taken on board the many comments; I am therefore disappointed that the updated proposals make minimal changes to reflect these comments.

“I will continue to do all that I can to press the developers to engage more meaningfully with local residents and to take more account of the concerns being raised. I will seek a meeting with Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State, to ensure that he is fully aware of the local situation.”

Layla Moran’s Oxford West & Abingdon constituency takes in the southern part of the site.

“I fully understand the strong feelings of the local community towards the proposed Botley West Solar Farm. We need to address climate change, and investing in renewable energy plays a vital part in that fight. But we have seen a complete lack of investment or strategy from this government that balances the needs of biodiversity, energy and food production.

“The Phase 2 consultation has been completely developer-led, with the ultimate planning decision being made by central government. My concern is that in bypassing local communities in this way, critical local knowledge will be lost. As to the proposal itself, residents are right to point out that we need renewables, and solar is part of that mix. Concerns they have raised include the sheer size and scale of the proposal, and its impacts on the landscape. The case to develop in the Oxford Green Belt has yet to be adequately demonstrated. And there has been little attempt to outline what community benefits will flow through from such a scheme. As it stands, I am not convinced the developers have made the case that this is the right solution for Oxfordshire.”

What’s next?

If there’s one theme emerging from our Infrastructure Week articles, it’s that none of this moves quickly. Miliband is expected to make his decision in mid-2026. Even the most rapid build and connection will not be complete until autumn 2028.

Meanwhile, Oxfordshire’s solar boom marches on. Applications have been lodged recently for several more solar farms. Willowfields Energy Park, spanning the A415 between Kingston Bagpuize and Marcham, is proposed to have 49.9MW generating capacity and a battery energy storage system (BESS) on site. A 49.9MW plant at Berinsfield has been approved on appeal. With a backdrop of ever more housing, plus energy-hungry industry such as Artificial Intelligence clusters, Oxfordshire’s own energy strategy has an ambition to increase the solar generating capacity from 300 MW to 1900 MW by 2030.

Mark Owen-Lloyd says the county should be proud to be at the forefront of solar energy.

“The reason we have such expensive power in the UK is gas – 20% more expensive than Europe. If you're going to build 40GW by 2030 that's a huge amount of money that's flowing into the UK. It's a really good thing for Oxfordshire – economically and in terms of energy. I hope people will focus on that and be prepared to tolerate the change in the way these fields look. We hope people will look at things in the round.”

A crusading Secretary of State looking for his legacy? A devoted resident concerned about the fields surrounding their village? A parent worried about the rapidly-heating world their child is growing up in? We all have our own tolerances for change. There is no doubt that massive solar farms like Botley West will be built over the next decade. The only question is in whose backyard.

Further reading

• Botley West: Project site including consultation documents.
• Stop Botley West: Campaign group including summary of the arguments against.
• The Lead: ‘The strange campaign to stop Britain's biggest solar farm’
• Low Carbon Hub: FAQs and technical questions.
• Non-Technical Project Summary: A comprehensive formal overview of the proposal.

This is part of the Oxford Clarion’s Infrastructure Week series. Read our introduction to the series – and why it matters.