Infrastructure Planning Blog

This week's blog takes a look at the Steeple Renewables Development Consent Order (DCO) decision and some of the key points emerging from the Secretary of State's decision letter.

On 9 October, one day before its (Saturday) decision deadline, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (SoS) granted the application for the Steeple Renewables DCO, a 450MW solar and battery storage project in Nottinghamshire, near the West Burton substation.

The Examining Authority of two inspectors recommended approval. There were two requests for information during the decision stage. The decision letter can be found here, and the made DCO can be found here.

The application was made on 14 May 2025, so about 17 months ago, which is almost exactly the average length of deciding a DCO application.  

Examining Authorities (ExAs) please note: once again the SoS corrected 'little' and 'very great' weight to 'limited' and 'substantial' respectively when judging impacts, citing National Policy Statement EN-1.

Site selection was justified on the basis of a grid offer at West Burton and a 15km search area, in accordance with EN-3 then paragraph 2.10.25, now 2.10.17.

Nottinghamshire County Council suggested that the discharge of requirements should involve public consultation, but this was rejected. The ExA recommended an independent design review of some of the elements of the project, but the SoS did not agree with that either. Unusually, and we believe uniquely in terms of being published, the SoS asked the ExA to clarify this issue during the decision period. ExAs, note for a second time: you can't completely forget about a project once you issue a recommendation.

Even though 72% of the order land was 'Best and Most Versatile' (BMV) agricultural land, this only afforded moderate negative weight. Somewhat ironically the worst effect on agricultural land was its loss to tree planting for environmental mitigation.

In respect of biodiversity net gain (BNG), the applicant only sought the (not yet mandatory) amount of 10% gain, which is secured in the DCO, and is therefore likely to have spare units for sale to others.  Skylarks were the main species discussed in the decision letter and are subject to a detailed requirement in the DCO. The SoS disagreed with the use of national rather than regional trends for skylarks, although accepted BMV land percentages referring to Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire together.

Further hedgerow planting was agreed for visual screening but landscape and visual impacts were still adjudged to have great negative weight.

There was disagreement between the applicant and National Grid about whether protective provisions were needed for National Grid's imminent application for the North Humber to High Marnham project. In the end, protective provisions were included in the DCO but do not refer to that project directly. Unusually, protective provisions were included for the UK Atomic Energy Authority subsidiary UK Fusion Energy Ltd because the project is near the proposed nuclear fusion plant at West Burton.

The SoS only disagreed with the ExA on the rating of two topics: design and biodiversity went from 'little positive' to 'neutral'.

The next DCO decisions due are three in quick succession: Great North Road solar by 28 October, Frodsham solar by 29 October and Sea Link by 30 October.

And finally, we don't normally comment on the annual publication of the legal directories Legal 500 and Chambers. However, we can't resist mentioning that this year our esteemed colleague Tom Henderson is described as 'the Albus Dumbledore of the infrastructure planning world'. If you want your project transfigured into one with a DCO, do get in touch with him.

This publication is intended for general guidance and represents our understanding of the relevant law and practice as at October 2026. Specific advice should be sought for specific cases. For more information see our terms & conditions.