Infrastructure Planning Blog

This week's entry looks at two solar development consent orders made this week. A third decision is also due this week on National Grid's Sea Link project, a subsea transmission cable between the Suffolk and Kent coasts. Angus will be covering that decision in next week's blog if it is made on time.

Frodsham

The first decision this week was on Frodsham Solar Farm, a 134MW solar farm located near Frodsham, Cheshire. The Order is here, the Secretary of State's ("SoS") decision letter and Examining Authority's ("ExA") recommendation report (recommending approval) are here and here.

Here is what caught my eye in what is a relatively straightforward decision letter:

• Grey belt: the solar farm is located entirely within the Green Belt. The applicant argued the land qualified as "grey belt" – Green Belt land which makes only a weak contribution to its core purposes – and was not therefore subject to the presumption against inappropriate development in National Policy Statement EN-1. The SoS rejected this, agreeing with the ExA that the site contributes strongly to the Green Belt purpose of preventing neighbouring towns (Frodsham and Runcorn) merging into one another. Green Belt policy therefore applied and the development was inappropriate, but very special circumstances ("VSC") were established on the basis of the urgent need for renewable energy development. In reaching that conclusion, the SoS noted that the 2026 National Planning Policy Framework upgrades the weight to be given to renewable and low-carbon energy benefits from "significant" to "substantial", further supporting the VSC case. Given that, the whole "is it grey belt" question seems pretty academic in the EN-1 context, especially where there are (as here) relatively few additional harms to weigh in the planning balance.  
• Decommissioning fund: Cheshire West County Council was seeking a decommissioning fund requirement, which would prevent the commencement of development until a fund or financial guarantee is approved. The ExA agreed but the SoS did not. NPS EN-3 requires decommissioning to be secured but it does not require a fund to be secured; and the funding statement confirms that decommissioning costs will be covered by revenue generated through operations. This is now well-trodden ground; calls for a decommissioning fund were also rejected by the SoS in the context of the Oaklands Farm Solar Park Order 2025. This should not be taking up examination time in future in my view.
• Capacity reduction: during the examination, the output capacity of the solar farm was reduced by 13MW from 147MW to 134MW (roughly 9% less). The land was instead turned over to bird mitigation, at the request of Natural England, amongst others, in order to avoid an adverse effect on the integrity of the Mersey Estuary Special Protection Area and Ramsar Site. In the SoS' view, the change did not have any material impact on the Environmental Statement or the Planning Statement.
• Compulsory acquisition: there is a notable reminder about the need to justify the extent of land required for compulsory acquisition on a plot-by-plot basis. The applicant was seeking permanent freehold acquisition of two plots (5-3 and 5-4) in connection with above-ground cable rights. The SoS concluded that this would be disproportionate and that compulsory acquisition should be limited to the acquisition of permanent rights only.
• Private wire connections: the Order includes powers to make private wire connections directly from the project to local businesses and industrial areas (Work No. 4B), with associated land acquisition powers. However, as no firm commitments from local businesses were in place to use them (understandably at this early stage), this did not attract weight in the planning balance. That seems slightly counter-intuitive. Will future applicants bother doing this if it cannot attract even limited positive weight?

Great North Road

The second decision this week was on Great North Road Solar and Biodiversity Park, an 800MW solar farm near Newark, Nottinghamshire. The Order is here, the SoS decision letter and ExA recommendation report (also recommending approval) are here and here.

Again, this is a relatively straightforward decision letter but two points are worth highlighting:

• Agricultural land: more than 60% of the 1,765-hectare site was classified as Best and Most Versatile ("BMV") Land. A key point of contention was whether woodland planting proposed as part of the biodiversity enhancement package would constitute a permanent loss of BMV land (more than 64,000 trees are to be planted). This also came up in the Steeple Renewables DCO analysed in Blog 72. The SoS concluded that it would, noting that the Land Use Framework for England records the Government's ambition to safeguard BMV land from permanent land use change and specifically identifies woodland creation as an example of land use change to be avoided on BMV land. Reversibility is the key factor: absent a commitment to remove the planting following decommissioning, the reasonable worst case is that it remains in situ permanently. This is consistent with the SoS' conclusion on Springwell Solar Farm and underscores the tension that can exist between biodiversity net gain commitments (here, tree planting) and competing land use objectives such as the protection of BMV land.
• Order drafting and management plans: the DCO (requirement 22) includes quite a rare obligation to produce a bespoke glint and glare mitigation strategy at the post-consent stage, addressing potential effects on certain stretches of the A1 and A616. Because the A1 is a National Highways ("NH") road, the SoS decided that NH should have approval rights over the strategy, not merely consultee status, in respect of matters concerning the A1. There was also quite a bit of discussion about the appropriate fees payable for technical highway approvals, ultimately resolved by wording in the construction traffic management plan substantially aligning those fees to those payable under the Highways Act 1980.

Other news

There was one blot on the copybook of timely decision-making this week. The Keadby Next Generation Power Station Project was due to be decided by 6 November but has now been delayed until 16 December (see here), "… to allow time to assess new information". The new information appears to be that submitted by Climate Emergency Science Law, available here.

On 28 October, the Government published the draft National Policy Statement for Data Centres for consultation, which will close at 11:59pm on 8 January 2027. Angus will be covering this in next week's blog, so more detail to follow.

Finally, the Government has published guidance on the discharge of requirements for nuclear and electricity transmission DCOs. It confirms that the newly established Post-Consent Unit based within the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and created in response to Recommendation 30 of the Nuclear Taskforce Review, will take over from local planning authorities the function of discharging post-consent requirements for nuclear and electricity transmission DCOs, with the aim of ensuring consistency of decision-making. DCO drafting should reflect this going forward. Similar arrangements apply to National Highways DCOs, where requirements are discharged by a dedicated team within the Department for Transport.

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