THE drip-drip-drip of controversial and landscape-changing energy projects is unlikely to stop any time soon.
As we report today, there are two schemes being proposed for land north of Wantage and near East Hendred, totalling 102-hectres in total.
Steventon is getting a solar farm, while there is a large one potentially going in at Besselsleigh.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England is against the Wantage plan, saying it would turn green space into an industrial unit even thought the developer says the countryside will be restored after 25 years of operation.
These projects are going to be on the agenda for years with the battle being very much between renewable and much-needed energy against groups like the CPRE. Remember too, fracking is a possibility, no matter how remote, for the county as well.
It is a difficult balancing act.
We need energy and the boom in businesses, jobs and development – particularly in that southern half of the county – has to be powered somehow.
But that can’t be a blank slate to allow developers to start coating the countryside in black panels.
Our planning authorities will have to weigh up the merits of both sides of the argument to come to the right decision locally, and then hope the Government backs them.
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