Infrastructure Planning Blog

Today's entry covers the approval of the Cory Decarbonisation Project application, the judicial review of the Luton Airport DCO and a reversion to online-only hearings.

The project is to create one or two carbon capture facilities for Cory's existing energy from waste facility 'Riverside 1' and its under construction one 'Riverside 2', consented via the Riverside Energy Park DCO in 2020. If Cory gets rid of all of its CO2, will it just be called "Ry"?

The CO2 will be liquefied and transported via a new or upgraded jetty to vessels for eventual burial underground. The exact storage site is not locked in, but one under the North Sea is used as a proxy. In what is surely a Finch-related development, the likely emissions from the project's proportion of the construction of a storage facility are declared.

The project was approved at about 5.20pm on 5 November – no doubt after a day of lots of people refreshing the webpage – but at least that was its due date.

Here are some notes from the Secretary of State (SoS) Decision Letter:

A minimum of 10% Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) has been committed to, I think, although it's a bit complicated with intertidal habitat being dealt with separately. There are no hedgerows involved so that metric is not mentioned. Offsite BNG, although not required to be known at decision stage in the town and country planning regime, was sourced at the former Thamesmead Golf Course, but the DCO does allow an alternative to be found if that one isn't secured.

The letter has the usual weighing up of impacts - but says it is 'unfortunate' that there is a net loss of sites for wildlife, and the effect on Metropolitan Open Land carried great negative weight.

On design, the SoS added an independent design review despite the applicant's protestations that this was not necessary.

The Environment Agency's updated flood mapping in March has required a bit of reassessment of projects being examined at that time and this one is no exception. That will eventually work its way through once applications can take it into account before they are made.

The application ran close to needing Special Parliamentary Procedure for loss of open space land, but the Examining Authority and the SoS both thought that the urgent national need for carbon capture meant it could be exempt.

On the DCO, the SoS removed the exemption from consent being needed for the applicant to transfer powers to its own subsidiary. Requirement 3 has a variety of bodies approving the other requirements. The DCO has what we think is a novel article (26) allowing oversailing of land with 14 days’ notice rather than needing to include such land in the order limits.

There is now a gap in DCO decisions, with the next one due being for the Helios Energy Park by 3 December, the day before the third deadline for the H2Teesside application.

High Court latest

The Luton Airport DCO decision was challenged over two days before Mrs Justice Lane in the High Court this week. LADACAN, the Luton and District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise, challenged the grant of the DCO on six grounds. Four of them related to carbon and environmental assessment, including the implications of the Finch judgment, with another one on the new duty on national landscapes (in this case, the Chilterns) – so two of the challenge topics de nos jours. One further ground was on hold pending the resolution of the challenge to the Jet Zero Strategy, being heard on 12 December. We think the judgment should be issued by the end of the year.

Back online

Finally, some hearings and even a preliminary meeting are going back to being online only, particularly late in an examination. My evidence is as follows:

• the Preliminary Meeting and two for Beacon Fen solar farm
• three for Dean Moor solar farm
• three for the Pear Tree Hill solar farm
• two for One Earth solar farm

I think that is enough to count as a trend; will it extend to non-solar projects? Time will tell. In-person hearings do have some advantages but they are undoubtedly more expensive.

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