901: Late and delayed DCO decisions continue

Today’s entry focuses on development consent order decision delays and amendments.

Norfolk Boreas extension

The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has finally issued a written statement to the effect that the new deadline for the Norfolk Boreas offshore windfarm is 10 December when it had been 12 April, so just under eight months’ delay.

The official reason is that it is to ‘to allow an opportunity for further information in respect of cumulative impacts of the onshore substation and of offshore environmental effects to be provided and considered.’ This is all tied up with the quashing of the sister Vanguard DCO for reasons relating to this shared substation, a deadline for comments on the redetermination of which expired yesterday.

If you are ever questioned as to whether a deadline can be extended after it has already expired, you can point to examples such as this. The deadline here was extended a month after expired. If it’s good enough for the government…

M25 Junction 10 extension

The Secretary of State for Transport has extended the deadline for the decision on the M25 Junction 10 project for a second time, this time for five months, it already having been extended for four months. The written statement can be found here.

The official reason is opaquely given as ‘to allow further consideration of environmental matters’.

Able Marine Energy Park

A non-material amendment was finally approved for this project last week (13 May) for an application that went in in September 2018! At 967 days that is more than three times the second slowest, which by my calculations is for the East Anglia One windfarm at 310 days (although the slowest correction order is longer at 339 days for East Anglia Three). The decision letter can be found here.

Undaunted (or perhaps put off non-material amendments with their lack of timescales), Able are embarking on the first ever material amendment. This is to amend the shape of the quay and its statutory consultation closes next week. I (and I suspect the Planning Inspectorate and the Department for Transport) are learning a lot about how these work in contrast to non-material amendments and original DCO applications. One of the best bits for applicants is that there is no acceptance stage – luxury! If you are contemplating a material amendment for your project, let me know…

Correction orders

A correction order has been issued for the ‘other’ A303 project, the Sparkford to Ilchester section. That took three months and 10 days, and is to add a right parenthesis. Oh, and to substitute the Secretary of State for the local highway authority in discharging requirement 20 (traffic monitoring and mitigation in Sparkford). As I have said before, correction orders can be used for more than typographical corrections.

A correction order has also been issued this week for Hornsea Three with no fewer than 45 changes, but they all look pretty minor. That took five months and 21 days.

So there are some delayed decisions (and corrections within a few months). The last decision was on 19 February (Kemsley – on time), the recent postponements mean that the next won’t be until at least 8 September (Aquind).

The NSIP reform framework is aiming to speed up some decisions by 50% by September 2023. Recent actions don’t currently match these words, but if the alternative is more applications refused on time, then perhaps that is worse – for applicants, at least.