Overall planning had a quieter year in 2020 than the previous year in terms of applications and decisions granted.  However there have been some interesting planning developments in the last month related to government planning decisions.  This article looks briefly at a wind farm in the Southern North Sea, a legal challenge to the A303 Stonehenge bypass and the Supreme Court decision in the challenge to the legality of the government’s approval of the third Heathrow runway.

Energy Secretary Alok Sharma has granted a development consent order (DCO) for 231 offshore wind turbines in the Southern North Sea, Ortsted Hornsea Project Three.  The grant followed a recommendation from the Planning Inspectorate, the examining authority in this case, that a DCO should not be granted.  Both the Planning Inspectorate and Sharma found that substantial weight should be given to the contribution the development would make towards renewable energy delivery.  Views differed on harm and whether the benefits would outweigh it.  The development was found likely to have an adverse effect on the Flamborough and Filey Coast Special Protection Area, the North Norfolk Sandbanks and Saturn Reef Special Area of Conservation and The Wash and North Norfolk Coast Special Area.  However, Sharma considered that the public benefits of the development would override the harm with appropriate compensation.  

Also granted against the recommendation of the examining authority, the Planning Inspectorate, was the DCO for a dual carriageway between Amesbury and Berwick Down, past Stonehenge World Heritage Site.  Grant Shapps considered that any harm to heritage assets, including the outstanding universal value, is less than substantial and outweighed by the benefits of the development.  The Planning Inspectorate had found that the development would cause permanent irreversible harm and any benefits could not outweigh this.  An application for judicial review was lodged just before Christmas and a day before the deadline to challenge the decision.  The new dual carriage way is far from certain to proceed just yet!

Better news for the government was the December Supreme Court decision to overturn the earlier ruling that the government’s approval of the third runway at Heathrow was illegal.  The Court of Appeal had found the approval to be unlawful as it failed to take account of the UK's commitments on global temperature rise.  The Supreme Court however was persuaded that that the commitments had been adequately considered in the process of producing the Airports National Policy Statement and did not need to be considered further in the Secretary of States decision.  What this means is that the Policy Statement has been reinstated, the development can now proceed to determination through the DCO process.  However, whether this will swiftly follow or at all is currently uncertain.  The effects of Covid on the aviation industry have been so severe that at least a delay to progress seems likely.