BELM Community Association

21/10/2026

🌳☀️ WHITESTONE SOLAR FARM – WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? ☀️🌳

📢 YOUR VOICE STILL MATTERS – AND NOW IS THE TIME TO BE HEARD!

The Whitestone Solar Farm application has now moved into the next stage of the Planning Inspectorate process, and there are some very important dates coming up.

After all the hard work, community meetings, conversations and 2,755 registrations, we now have another opportunity to make sure our communities’ concerns are heard.

🗓️ IMPORTANT HEARING DATES

🔴 Tuesday 10 November – 2:00pm

Open Floor Hearing (OFH1)

This is YOUR opportunity to speak directly to the Examining Authority about the proposed development and explain how it could affect you, your family, your home and your community.

🔴 Wednesday 11 November – 10:00am

Issue Specific Hearing (ISH1) – Environmental Matters.

🔴 Thursday 12 November – 10:00am

Issue Specific Hearing (ISH2) – Environmental Matters.

📍 WHERE?

1925 Suite, AESSEAL New York Stadium, New York Way, Rotherham, S60 1FJ.

⏰ IMPORTANT – DEADLINE 27 OCTOBER 2026 AT 11:59PM!

If you would like to attend or speak at the Open Floor Hearing, you need to complete the Event Participation Form before the deadline.

✅ You can register to speak.

✅ You can attend simply to listen.

✅ You can ask someone you know, your Parish Council or a local community group to speak on your behalf.

💚 DID YOU KNOW?

You can also continue to submit information, supporting documents, photographs and evidence through the ‘Have your say’ section of the Planning Inspectorate’s NSIP portal.

🏡 WOULD YOU LIKE THE INSPECTORS TO SEE THE POTENTIAL IMPACT FROM YOUR OWN HOME?

You can request that the Examining Authority considers visiting your property in February 2027 to understand what this development could look like from your garden, bedroom window or surrounding area.

Use the ‘Have your say’ form to make your request.

⚠️ Remember to include your Interested Party Reference Number in all correspondence with the Planning Inspectorate.

🌿 WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

For many of us, Whitestone isn’t simply about solar panels.

It’s about the potential impact on our countryside, agricultural land, wildlife, landscapes, roads, public footpaths, bridleways, homes and the character of the communities we love.

This is our opportunity to make sure those concerns are properly considered.

💪 WE’VE COME TOO FAR TO GO QUIET NOW!

The Whitestone Warriors, alongside residents, Parish Councils and local community groups, have worked incredibly hard to get us to this stage.

But the process isn’t over.

If you registered your interest, please consider taking that next step. You don’t have to be an expert, a public speaker or know anything about planning law.

You just need to explain why your community matters to you.

📢 Please share this post with friends, family, neighbours and local community groups across the affected areas.

💚 TAKE PART. BE HEARD. PROTECT WHAT MATTERS.

⚔️ WHITESTONE WARRIORS ⚔️

Standing together for our countryside and communities.

06/10/2026

Evening everyone 🥰

Just a little update on the previous Facebook post and the image provided. This was to raise awareness of yet another Solar Farm to add to the Common Farm on the Straight Mile and the proposed huge Solar Farm project in the review stage with the planning inspectorate.

Please see attached the actual map from the RMBC website.

Apologies for any confusion on the areas 🥰

06/10/2026

☀️ ANOTHER SOLAR DEVELOPMENT – EXAGEN AT MORTHEN | HAVE YOUR SAY

Many of us have spent a huge amount of time over the last year looking at the potential impact of Whitestone Solar Farm, but it is important that people are also aware that this is not the only major solar development proposed for our area.

Exagen has a separate planning application with Rotherham Council for a renewable energy park on land off Morthen Lane, Morthen – Planning Reference RB2025/0714.

The proposal includes ground-mounted solar PV, a substation compound, inverters, cabling, access tracks, fencing and associated landscaping. RMBC has now received amended landscape mitigation plans, including proposed permissive paths, and nearby residents are being given a further opportunity to comment before the application is considered by the Planning Regulatory Board. Letter.pdf

📢 If you live locally, use the area, walk the footpaths, ride horses, travel along the surrounding roads or simply care about what happens to the countryside around Morthen, please take the opportunity to look at the plans and make your views known.

The Council’s letter is dated 6 October 2026 and allows 21 days from the date of the letter for written comments, which means people should aim to respond before 27 October. Previous comments do not need to be submitted again – they will still be taken into account. Letter.pdf

You can view the application and submit a comment directly through RMBC here:

👉 View and comment on planning application RB2025/0714⁠

The Council’s online system currently confirms that the application remains valid with no decision yet made and is proposed to be determined by committee.

Whitestone is significant enough on its own – but we also need to keep sight of the cumulative impact of other large-scale solar developments being proposed across our communities.

Whatever your view – support, objection or general observation – please make it count and register it formally with RMBC.

📍 Planning Reference: RB2025/0714 – Exagen, Morthen Lane, Morthen

Please share this with neighbours and local groups so people don’t miss the opportunity to have their say.

23/09/2026

📣 WHITESTONE – THE NUMBERS ARE IN

After months of meetings, community events, leaflets, conversations, social media posts and people giving up countless hours to encourage our communities to have their say, the figure from the Whitestone registration process is:

2,755 Relevant Representations

Firstly, a genuine thank you to every single person who registered.

Those 2,755 representations now form part of the formal Planning Inspectorate process, and each one represents somebody who took the time to engage with what could be a major change for communities across South Yorkshire.

But now that we have the number, I think we also have to be open about how it feels.

Whitestone’s own consultation process covered communities across Rotherham, Doncaster and the surrounding area, and this is a proposal large enough to be treated as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project.

Based on the approximate population of the communities within and around the closest-affected area, 2,755 represents only a small percentage of the people potentially living near or affected by the proposals.

After everything that has happened over the last couple of years, that is disappointing.

We have held meeting after meeting.

We have taken information into villages and communities.

Parish councils, residents’ groups and volunteers have shared maps, answered questions and helped people understand an extremely complicated planning process.

Thousands of conversations have taken place and our social media coverage has reached hundreds of thousands of people.

Yet ultimately, 2,755 people completed the formal registration process.

And it is interesting to put that into the context of other major solar NSIPs.

🔹 Lime Down Solar Park, Wiltshire – 4,958 Relevant Representations
🔹 Whitestone Solar Farm – 2,755
🔹 Botley West Solar Farm, Oxfordshire – around 1,115
🔹 Sunnica Energy Farm, Suffolk/Cambridgeshire – around 1,050

The Planning Inspectorate’s Lime Down records confirm 4,958 valid representations, making the scale of public participation there particularly notable.

So Whitestone’s 2,755 is certainly significant in comparison with several other large solar proposals.

But for those of us who have spent months travelling around the communities, holding events, posting information, delivering leaflets and encouraging people to participate, I think we had hoped for considerably more.

Especially when you consider the potential scale of Whitestone and the issues people have raised around farmland, landscape, flooding, highways, public rights of way, wildlife, construction traffic and the cumulative impact on villages and communities.

Perhaps one of the biggest lessons from the whole campaign is this:

Awareness and formal participation are two very different things.

Getting somebody to read a Facebook post or discuss Whitestone with a neighbour is one thing.

Getting them to sit down, register with the Planning Inspectorate and submit a Relevant Representation is another.

So while there is some disappointment in the final figure, there should also be enormous pride in what has been achieved.

❤️ 2,755 people made the effort to formally have their say.

And to everybody who attended an event, shared a post, delivered a leaflet, explained a map, spoke to neighbours or helped somebody register — thank you.

The registration stage may now be finished.

But the Whitestone examination is only just beginning.

We will continue to follow the process, share the important information and make sure our communities understand what happens next.

🌳 Our communities. Our countryside. Our future.

18/09/2026

16/09/2026

𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗗 𝗗𝗢𝗘𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗠𝗘𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗨𝗧 Six days after a battery fire began at the Summerside Sunbank Solar/Battery Farm in Prince Edward Island, battery cells were still burning off, smoke remained visible and officials warned that further fl...

16/09/2026

https://youtu.be/Jawe2xPpJ-U?is=8AJtgsFxZbZuzd66

The latest video on Common Farm from our roving South Yorkshire reporter 🥰

Just imagine something 10 times the size of this with panels that are double the height from Whitestone!

This is awful 😢

Filmed using a powerful Sony 350mm telephoto zoom lens from the top...

14/09/2026

⛽ HERE WE GO AGAIN… “OIL HAS HIT $100 A BARREL”

And almost immediately, we start hearing warnings that fuel prices could rise again.

But here’s the question nobody seems to ask…

When oil was around this level before, diesel was far cheaper at the pump:

• 2011: around £1.40 per litre
• 2012: around £1.48 per litre
• Early 2022: around £1.53 per litre
• Today: around £1.86 per litre

And in 2008, crude oil actually reached around $144 a barrel — yet diesel was only about £1.33 per litre.

So if oil has been at $100, $120 and even $140+ before…

Why does $100 a barrel now suddenly mean we should expect another painful rise at the pumps? 🤔

Yes, there are other factors — fuel duty, VAT, exchange rates, refining costs, wholesale margins and retailer margins.

But that’s exactly the point.

Maybe instead of simply accepting the headline “oil prices are up, so fuel prices must go up”, we should be asking:

👉 Where exactly is all the extra money going?
👉 Which part of the supply chain has increased the most?
👉 And are motorists really getting a fair deal?

Because the historical numbers suggest there’s a lot more to fuel prices than the cost of a barrel of oil.

What do you think?