PLANS have been submitted to create a solar farm with almost 85,000 panels in an Oxfordshire village.

Rodney Hughes, of R S Assemblies Ltd, has submitted plans to Cherwell District Council to develop the solar farm at Home Farm, Merton, near Bicester.

The panels would be installed over 37.5 hectares of fields – an area the size of 60 football pitches – and would feed into the national grid. It could potentially generate power for around 4,000 homes.

The application also includes other equipment, boundary fences and CCTV cameras.

Ambrosden Parish Council chairman Mark Longworth said: “We have unanimously agreed to support the principle of this application, and applaud the eco nature of this proposal, compared to the incinerators that have been approved elsewhere in the district.”

Neither Oxfordshire County Council or the Environment Agency have raised objections.

The firm’s agent Buckle Chamberlain Partnership, declined to comment at this stage.