This week’s blog covers the issuing of a ‘minded to refuse’ letter for a strategic rail freight interchange Development Consent Order (DCO) application in Leicestershire and the grant of an electricity line DCO application in Essex and Suffolk.
Minded to refuse
For the Hinckley National Rail Freight Interchange DCO application, due to be decided on 10 September, the Secretary of State has issued a ‘minded to refuse’ letter and has extended the decision deadline to 10 March 2025. A minded to refuse letter means the Secretary of State hasn’t made a final decision yet, but as things stand, she is expecting to refuse it.
The only other-minded to refuse letter so far issued for a DCO was for the A303 Sparkford project (the same road as Stonehenge but further along). In that case, the project was eventually granted so the Secretary of State’s mind can be changed.
The letter can be found here.
The Examining Authority recommend refusal, and their report is published. The main reasons for this are around road safety in a village where HGVs may have to go on the pavement if they are passing each other. This is in contrast to the National Policy Statement which requires projects to contribute to the improvement of safety.
The modelling and assessment of impacts on the M1 / M69 interchange was a second major issue in dispute, and more information is requested.
Noise impacts on a travellers’ site were a third significant issue, with a proposed acoustic barrier not sufficiently specified.
Network Rail comes in for some stick for lacking rigour and not being objective (para 36) on the issue of providing a new railway station, an issue that carried substantial weight against the proposal.
The discouragement of HGVs using local roads was not considered strong enough in terms of amounts of fines and a three-stage escalation process.
National Highways believe the contribution to mitigate impacts in the s106 obligation should be £1.5-2m rather than the £345k it currently contains.
An issue with SRFIs is whether the warehousing can be built before the rail connection, with the risk that the latter may never be built. In this case, 105,000 m2 of warehousing would be allowed to be built (out of 850,000).
The three main issues above and the impacts on a level crossing are the main ones on which further information is requested from the applicant, plus four subsidiary issues, by 10 December.
Power line granted
The second story of the week is the granting of the Bramford to Twinstead power line DCO, granted on time on 12 September 2024.
Here are the facts and figures:
- project: a 27 km power line in Essex and Suffolk, replacing an existing one;
- promoter: National Grid;
- application made: 27 April 2023;
- application decided: 12 September 2024 (16 1 / 2 months) – below average;
- four inspectors: Andrew Mahon, Julie de-Courcey, John McEvoy and Jason Rowlands;
- 138 relevant representations (about average);
- 667 questions in the first round (high);
- six Issue Specific Hearings, two Compulsory Acquisition Hearings and one Open Floor Hearing (above average);
- two local impact reports, from Braintree and Essex jointly, and Suffolk and Babergh and Mid Suffolk jointly;
- one consultation by the Secretary of State during the decision stage: low;
- 933 documents were on the Planning Inspectorate web page on the date of the decision (above average).
Notes from the decision letter are as follows.
The issues and weight ascribed to them are usefully summarised at paragraph 4.4 – those with the most weight are need (great positive), biodiversity and ecology, historic environment, land use, soil and ground conditions, and public rights of way (moderate negative).
The Examining Authority recommended approval, and this was endorsed by the Secretary of State.
The ExA added further protection to works in a Site of Special Scientific Interest, affected by maintenance of the project.
On heritage, the effects were on Hintlesham Hall and Dedham Vale; Constable gets a brief mention, but the unnamed artist associated with Dedham Vale and Benton End House is Arthur Lett-Haines.
Landscape and visual, usually a big factor for overhead line projects, only gets a brief mention, possibly because this project is about half underground and is replacing existing lines.
The biggest news (but perhaps I’m biased, having a special interest in this) is on biodiversity net gain (BNG).
First, the Secretary of State confirms the government’s intention to introduce this for NSIPs from November 2025, the first time I’ve seen the new government say this.
Secondly, the project is given compulsory acquisition powers for BNG land, even though it is not yet mandatory, citing paragraph of 2.6.6 of the new National Policy Statement EN-5, even though it does not apply directly to this project, which is too early. That confirms that if you can find a similar statement in the NPS that relates to your project, you can be granted compulsory acquisition powers for BNG.
The decision letter devotes 28 paragraphs to the permanent acquisition of rights over Mr P Nott and Mr G Nott’s land rather than temporary possession.
There was an interface with the East Anglia One windfarm (onshore cable route) but that project’s developer did not make a representation or respond to a Rule 17 request from the ExA. The ExA decided that the projects could coexist satisfactorily.
A golf course and some other private land were assumed to be open space by the applicant, who still satisfied the test for avoiding special parliamentary procedure; the ExA and SoS also had doubts as to whether it was legally open space land.
A few amendments were made to the DCO. One on materially new or materially different environmental effects was reversed because this ‘does not prevent any changes which are beneficial for the environment, provided such changes do not result in significant effects that have not been previously identified and properly assessed in the environmental statement’. Is that an olive branch for it really meaning material new or materially worse environmental effects?
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