Stratford on Avon District Councillor Malcolm Littlewood is delighted that an application to build a giant anaerobic digester in the rural parish of Tysoe has been withdrawn by the applicants, Acorn Bioenergy, after it became clear that it would be refused permission. 

The application, submitted over two years ago, met with enormous resistance from both  residents of villages around the proposed site and local councillors, as well as from further afield with over 1400 objections being submitted to the District Council. Malcolm commented “I would like to thank the wonderful team of people in Tysoe, led by Cllr David Roache, whose energy and expertise were essential for this positive outcome. Whilst there is undoubtedly a value to these digesters, they need to be built in the right locations with suitable road infrastructure and this was not one of them, the disruption and scar to the landscape would have been enormous.” 

Cllr David Roache, Chair of Tysoe Parish Council, said that the main objections were the irreversible harm it would do to the surrounding landscape and the congestion, damage and pollution that would be caused by transporting 92,000 tons of crop feedstock to the digester around harvest time each year. There was also significant concern over the fact that the gas produced in the plant would have to be transported by road to Banbury. No discernible benefit to the surrounding community could be identified that might offset the undoubted harm that the plant would cause.

Cllrs Littlewood and Roache expressed relief that Acorn had withdrawn the application, which they described as wholly opportunistic.

The proposed industrial scale plant would include five giant structures the height of four double decker buses and be a huge scar on the landscape on the margins of the Cotswold National Landscape.

(graphic produced by Zanna McKail for Tysoe Parish Council)