Call me a nimby if you like – I still don’t want super-sized solar farms in my backyard

Most super-sized solar farms are in desert wastelands. Why? Well, the clue is surely in the name: “desert”. AKA... unused, uninhabited expanses with almost relentless sunshine – that’s where you put a super-sized solar farm. Obvious, surely?

Not so, however, for residents living in the shadow of the proposed 11-mile long, three-mile wide “Botley West Solar Farm” in West Oxfordshire, which could soon get the government go-ahead. That’s right: in one of the least solar-efficient regions of the planet, a vast swathe of land the size of Heathrow Airport could soon find itself covered in 2.5 million solar panels.

Botley West would put an end to centuries of food production and destroy the countryside for the thousands of people who live there. If this is what passes for solar “efficiency” in the UK, then it merely reinforces the case for focusing more on wind and other more sustainable alternatives.

And yes, I am one of the 50,000 people directly affected by the Botley West proposal. “Nimbyism” then? Oh, definitely. But that’s because in my eyes this is a grotesque mutation of green into greed and has no need to be in my back yard in the first place. Not in anyone’s back yard, anywhere.

The British Isles (again, the clue is in the name) has obvious natural potential to harness the (fast-developing) technologies for expanding the use of wind-turbines, tidal and other sustainable options.

Solar power (also fast-developing) should play a part, but that does not necessitate the complete destruction of productive and cherished rural areas. Solar panels can go on industrial, warehouse and domestic roof spaces. They can sit between railway lines, as planned for the whole of the Swiss network. They can be on community farms and brownfield sites. In this particular instance, the site of the disused Didcot A Power Station would plainly make for a more efficient location for a large solar farm. And it’s already linked to the National Grid.

And what do we know of the two main enterprises behind the lucrative Botley West proposal?

Blenheim Estates is the landowner agreeing to convert most of the 2,471 acres in question. They would gain an immensely higher return per acre in so doing – I don’t think it’s in dispute that the yield per acre in the UK is much higher for solar panels, compared to the expected yield from cereal or cattle farming.

But it’s all part of their commitment to a greener future, apparently. So thoroughly committed to green and solar, in fact, that on looking around both their new and extensive housing estates last week, in Woodstock and Long Hanborough, I could not find a single solar panel on a visual inspection of any of the 200 or so homes – and Blenheim Estates didn’t respond when I contacted them to ask about it.

Meanwhile, the developer here is Photovolt Development Partners. I went along to one of their presentations. They began their pitch by running through the challenges we all face with regard to global warming and national energy security. Few of us would argue with that. But it was then quite a stretch to go on to claim that this massive solar money-spinner was the best and most efficient answer anyone in the UK could hope for, while the wind and rain lashed outside the village hall.

The outcome of this does indeed matter now and to future generations. If proposals like these are approved by the Department of Energy, that will surely be “it”. It will mean the end for any logical, objectively-based “strategy” for the UK’s green and sustainable energy future.

We’ve seen it elsewhere already: it’s not “just” some local affair. Nor a “one-off”. Try telling that to those who now live in the shadow of the Mallard Pass solar proposal in Lincolnshire and Rutland, or to people fighting the Rosefield plan for Buckinghamshire, or to those facing the vast Sunnica project now threatening to glass a huge stretch of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

But maybe don’t try telling those now living under the cloud of the Longfield Solar Farm in Essex. The developers have already begun digging there. Grant Shapps gave it the nod last summer, despite local protests.

It’s got nothing to do with saving the planet. A potentially proud golden age of strategic green energy-planning will prove to be – as many might fear, in this age of shambolic, short-sighted politics – a chaotic and environmentally-ruinous gold rush.