Welcome to our website for Astwick Green – a renewable biomethane facility located west of the A43 between Evenley and Croughton. The planning application received a Resolution to Grant Full planning permission at West Northamptonshire’s Strategic Planning Committee on September 23rd 2025.
Astwick Green is an agricultural scheme with local farmers at its heart. Our plans will contribute to Britain’s energy security whilst importantly supporting local farmers from the surrounding area. In many instances this is critical for the viability and financial security of British family farms.
This website will continue to be updated as the project moves forward.
Read our Astwick Briefing Doc to find out how Astwick Green will back British farming. Click here to read our response to questions we’ve received during the planning process.
At a glance
Our refreshed plans maintain all of the project benefits while reducing impacts on local people:
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We will work hand-in-hand with the local farming industry, providing local farmers with guaranteed revenue and natural fertiliser.
Astwick Green Energy will take organic material, including crops from rotations and manure, from local farms to feed the plant. The same farmers will benefit by receiving the natural fertiliser produced at the end of the gas generation process. This will reduce the amount of expensive and imported artificial fertiliser that local farm businesses need to buy, improving soil health and storing more carbon.
We’ll also create 15 Full Time Equivalent jobs, and support 35 further jobs through the supply chain.
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Astwick Green will help Britain regain our energy and food security. Currently, we import energy and fertiliser that can easily be produced within Britain.
Over 60% of nitrogen fertiliser is imported to the UK from overseas. Astwick Green would help tackle this problem by producing fertiliser from the anaerobic digestion process. This goes back to the same local farmers who supply our plant. Along with the growing of energy crops as part of agricultural rotation, this will improve soil health and long term crop yields.
Our nation is vulnerable to volatile international gas prices. Astwick Green will generate enough energy to heat the equivalent of 8,142 households, greater than the number of homes in Brackley.
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We put forward a previous proposal for such a development on this site in August 2022. Although this received no objections from technical consultees and the Council’s Planning Team recommended its approval, our planning application was refused in December 2023 because of concerns about its scale, height and massing on the local area, and impacts on the local landscape character.
We have listened to this feedback and have changed our plans.
Through a complete redesign of the scheme, we have prepared new proposals which maintain support the rural economy and contribute to British energy security, but significantly reduce their scale, height and massing and related local landscape impacts.
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We’ve listened to the feedback from our previous application and taken steps to reduce the impacts of the proposal, with fewer tanks, most of which are lower, minimising the impact on the landscape, but kept all the benefits to local farmers and the rural economy.
The buildings at Astwick Green Energy won’t look out of scale from the type of structures, such as barns, often seen on commercial farms.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Astwick Green is an agricultural development to serve the existing local farming community. There aren’t comparable facilities in the local area at the moment, so by using this site we ensure local farmers will receive the benefits of guaranteed income from their break crops and wastes whilst also benefitting from having access to natural fertiliser for use on their land.
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The site includes our 12-acre renewable biomethane facility site, and an additional 14 acres of land which will be planted and managed to support local wildlife.
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We listened to the feedback from our previous application and took steps to reduce the impacts of the proposal, with fewer tanks, most of which are lower, minimising the impact on the landscape, but kept all the benefits to the environment and the rural economy. The original plan had all five tanks at 17.2m high, now only one is 16.5m on a reduced slab level with the other two tanks limited to 9m. The buildings at Astwick Green Energy won’t look out of scale from the type of structures, such as barns, often seen on commercial farms.
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Astwick Green will not generate any detectable smells at any residential homes. We’ve achieved this by including state-of-the-art ventilation and control systems, and by redesigning the manure building to enable internal deliveries.
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There will be an average of 68 daily HGV movements from the roads, capped at 134 daily HGV movements, increasing local HGV traffic by just 0.14%. This means that for every 700 existing trips on local roads, we add just one.
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Break crops need to be grown to support soil health, improve drought resistance and help improve crop yields. Farmers receive essential income for this crop, and benefit from the availability of our natural digestate fertiliser that improves land quality and yields, supporting food production.
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Anaerobic digestion is an efficient circular process which creates zero waste and has a number of benefits including:
Generating home grown energy,
Providing much needed financial support to local farmers,
Creating natural digestate fertiliser (that smells significantly less than untreated slurry products on fields) that improves soil quality and enhances food production,
Producing biogenic-CO2, to replace expensive imports in UK industry.
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In addition to at least 5 full-time staff on-site, the site can support 45 roles in the supply chain, 100 construction jobs, and support the viability of many local family-owned farms.