The Home Office has confirmed that the MOD Bicester proposal is being pursued through an Urgent Crown Development planning application.
The confirmation was provided in response to a Parliamentary Question submitted by Calum Miller MP. The Home Office said that an application had been submitted to obtain planning permission, while stressing that no final decision would be made until planning and other due-diligence work had been completed.
Urgent Crown Development procedures are intended for Crown proposals considered both nationally important and urgent. The use of this route has therefore prompted questions about the opportunities local residents, councils and statutory organisations will have to examine the evidence and respond.
Those concerns are heightened by the Government’s admission that the Home Office first informed the Ministry of Defence in November 2025 that it was considering the potential use of MOD Bicester. Feasibility work and initial surveys had already been progressing before the wider public announcement in June.
The campaign believes the Government must explain why a proposal under consideration since November now requires an urgent planning process.
Matthew Pennycook, the Minister for Housing and Planning, was asked why the urgent route had been selected. His Parliamentary response referred to a previous Written Ministerial Statement but did not provide a detailed, site-specific explanation of the urgency attached to MOD Bicester.
Wrong Plan. Wrong Site. is calling for the Government to publish its formal statements of urgency and national importance, along with the evidence of need, alternatives considered and the arrangements for public consultation.
A major development expected to operate for at least ten years should be subject to transparent and meaningful scrutiny.
