Latest news with #TimSummer
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Campaigners call on King Charles to help them stop Britain's biggest solar farm as £800m 3,500-acre project is set to spread across Winston Churchill's Blenheim birthplace
Campaigners have called on King Charles to help them stop Britain's biggest solar farm set to spread across the Blenheim Estate where Sir Winston Churchill was born. The £800million Botley West project is expected to cover almost 3,500 acres of land in Oxfordshire with solar panels. This includes 2,000 acres of the Blenheim Estate, which the Duke of Marlborough's half-brother Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill, who runs the property, has agreed to lease. Locals branded the plans an outrage and Tim Summer has written a letter to the King citing an act from the early 18th century to explain that he must intervene. He claimed that the Blenheim Estate does not officially own the land, explaining that it is leased by the Crown to the Duke of Marlborough. He supports this claim using the 1705 Queen Anne Act of Parliament, which gave the Blenheim Estate to John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough. Mr Summer said: 'Leasing and giving ownership of Blenheim land to a third party who will directly enjoy financial benefits is against the 1705 Queen Anne Act. 'I therefore humbly ask that the Crown steps in to enforce its ownership of the Blenheim Estate as Queen Anne intended and refuses the Blenheim Estate land to be handed over to any third party.' Since May, the Planning Inspectorate has been examining the scheme and will eventually send a recommendation to Energy and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband. The King, a lifelong environmental campaigner has not commented on the Botley West project. But the argument was presented at a hearing in Oxford and the Planning Inspectorate has asked for further clarification from Blenheim. A spokesperson for the estate said: 'We are aware of the comments made during the public examination which are not correct in relation to this project.' The King, has installed solar panels at Windsor Castle and a solar farm on a former horse grazing paddock at Sandringham. If the Blenheim Palace plan goes ahead, protesters said children being born now will be middle-aged before they see the green fields surrounding their homes. Meanwhile, Blenheim Estate is set to make £128million from leasing their land to German company Photovolt Development Partners (PVDP), which has created UK company SolarFive Ltd specially for the project. At the moment Blenheim are said to make £150 per acre per year from its land. PVDP said the going rate for leasing land for solar panels is £1,000 per acre, a 567 per cent increase. Mark Owen-Lloyd the director of PVDP said: 'Should the project be granted consent, Photovolt will become one of many tenants of the Blenheim Estate, who have leased their land for centuries. 'The restrictions apply only to the World Heritage Site that is Blenheim Palace, which will of course have no solar panels installed on it.' More than 11,000 homes across 15 villages within a mile of the panels will be affected, with the panels visible from most of the land in the 60 square miles surrounding the massive solar farm.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
King asked to intervene in plans to build Britain's biggest solar farm
The King has been asked to intervene to halt plans to build Britain's biggest solar farm. A large portion of the project will be built on the 12,000-acre Blenheim Estate, where Winston Churchill was born. The £800 million Botley West project is set to cover almost 3,500 acres of land across Botley, Woodstock and Kidlington in Oxfordshire. The Planning Inspectorate is examining the scheme and will make a recommendation to Ed Miliband, the Energy and Net Zero Secretary, within six months. Locals have been campaigning against the plans but now one of them, Tim Summer, has written a letter claiming an act from the early 18th century means the monarch should step in. Mr Summer's arguments are based around the 1705 Queen Anne Act of Parliament, which gave the Blenheim Estate to John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough. Mr Sumner claims the Blenheim Estate does not officially own the land and that the 1705 Act states it should not be used for any purposes other than the duke's. As such, Mr Sumner maintains that 'since the Crown leases land to the duke, the Crown must be consulted'. He added: 'Leasing and giving ownership of Blenheim land to a third party who will directly enjoy financial benefits is against the 1705 Queen Anne Act.' Mr Sumner added: 'I therefore humbly ask that the Crown steps in to enforce its ownership of the Blenheim Estate as Queen Anne intended and refuses the Blenheim Estate land to be handed over to any third party.' The King, a lifelong environmental campaigner, has called for a rapid increase in renewable energy and is striving to make the Royal Household net zero by 2030. He has installed solar panels at Windsor Castle and a solar farm on a former horse grazing paddock at Sandringham. His Majesty is yet to respond to the Botley West row but the arguments concerning the Crown were presented at a recent hearing in Oxford. The Planning Inspectorate has asked for further clarification from Blenheim. A spokesman for the estate said: 'We are aware of the comments made during the public examination which are not correct in relation to this project.' Mark Owen-Lloyd, director of Photovolt, the company behind the project, said: 'Should the project be granted consent, Photovolt will become one of many tenants of the Blenheim Estate, who have leased their land for centuries. 'The restrictions apply only to the World Heritage Site that is Blenheim Palace, which will of course have no solar panels installed on it.' The Duke of Marlborough, a Reform UK backer, is said to be opposed to the project. The 12th Duke, known as Jamie Blandford, is a member of Reform, which believes that 'productive land must be farmed, not be used for solar farms or rewilding'. However, the Duke's chequered past involving drug addiction and multiple spells in prison saw him lose control of the family seat in 1994. His legal control of the Blenheim Estate is significantly limited because he is not a trustee of the Blenheim Palace Heritage Foundation, which operates the World Heritage site. The estate itself supports the potentially lucrative project, from which it is predicted to earn about £1,000 an acre for each of the 40 years that Photovolt leases the land. Mr Sumner, who went to Parliament to see some of these acts first-hand, said he was motivated to do the research because of his interest in his local area's past and the solar farm. Professor Alex Rogers, chairman of Stop Botley West, said this letter has questioned 'the idea that the developer can do whatever they want with the land'. Earlier in 2025, Mr Miliband was accused of breaking the ministerial code after his department approved an application for a solar farm owned by the millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince. The Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero signed off on Heckington Fen Solar Park, a 524-hectare solar farm in Lincolnshire which is owned by Ecotricity, Mr Vince's green energy company. Ecotricity has donated £5.4 million to Labour since 2021, making Mr Vince one of the party's most prominent business backers. The energy department said it was Lord Hunt, a minister, and not Mr Miliband who was responsible for signing off on the solar farm. A spokesman added: 'No rules have been broken. Political donations have no influence over how planning applications are considered.' Mr Vince also rejected suggestions the approval was politically motivated and said the site would create hundreds of jobs.
