941: Two more offshore wind farm DCOs approved

This week’s entry considers the latest two decisions on Development Consent Order applications.

On 31 March at around 5:00pm the East Anglia Offshore Windfarm One North and the East Anglia Offshore Windfarm Two DCO applications were both granted. The DCOs, recommendation reports (the inspectors were the same) and the decision letters are very similar.

They had been due on 6 January but the decision period had been delayed by nearly three months by the Secretary of State to the day they were taken. Their examinations were also delayed by three months, not just because of covid-19, either.

Here are the facts and figures:

• project: an 800MW (One North) and 900MW (Two) wind farm off the coast of Suffolk;
• promoter: Scottish Power Renewables;
• five inspectors: Rynd Smith, Jon Hockley, Caroline Jones, Jessica Powis and Guy Rigby;
• 878 (One North) and 833 (Two) relevant representations – high;
• 159 written representations – I don’t think I’ve seen higher;
• 476 questions in the first round – mostly asked of both projects but some asked just of one – high;
• 17 specific issue hearings, seven open floor hearings and two compulsory acquisition hearings – very high;
• 888 days from application to decision (the examinations being extended by three months and the decisions being nearly three months late); and
• 3714 and 3732 documents on the Planning Inspectorate web page on the date of the decision (not including the relevant representations) – possibly the highest.

Points worth noting:

The draft NPSs were considered to be ‘important and relevant’ and were taken into account to some extent in the decision, but the old ones were still the main consideration.

The Offshore Transmission Network Review once again raised its head and the lack of coordination of onshore cabling did weigh against the projects but not decisively. Calls for a ‘split decision’ (ie approve offshore, reject onshore) were rejected.

The only environmental topic that had a high negative weight against approval was flood risk, somewhat surprisingly, given we are talking about offshore wind farms. No, they don’t fill the sea up, the risk was from the onshore infrastructure.

Paragraph 27.4 of the decision letters handily summarise the weight of the adverse impacts.

The projects were criticised for not separating grade 3a and 3b agricultural land, given that 3a is Best and Most Versatile and 3b isn’t. The justification for loss of BMV land at substation was described as ‘weak’.

Cumulative impacts with Sizewell C were considered, even though that hasn’t been consented yet (due in May).

On biodiversity net gain the projects did not provide gain, however the applicant demonstrated no net loss and identified opportunities for ecological enhancement. I’m not sure how committed they were to providing them.

I like the use of ‘weighty harm’ in a few places as short hand for harm to which considerable weight is attached.

On habitats there had been late correspondence about increasing the distance between the windfarms and the nearest Special Protection Area (ie reducing the size of the windfarm, you can’t just add bits further away) to mitigate effects on the red-throated diver. The Secretary of State decided that reducing the size of the One North windfarm to be further away would not meet its objectives. The ‘Imperative Reasons of Overriding Public Importance’ test is met because the public benefit is essential and urgent to limiting the extent of climate change.

The One North separation from the nearest SPA was increased to 8km in the end, even though Natural England wanted 10km. The Two separation was already 8.3km so no further restriction was imposed.

On compensation, the figures seem pretty amazing: the collision risk for lesser black-backed gulls was calculated to be 0.3 birds a year, and a compensatory habitat is to be provided for 28,000 of them. I suppose the word ‘overkill’ is probably not the right one here, but that seems pretty generous. For kittiwakes it was 0.7 birds from one windfarm and 0.8 from the other and a habitat for 200 was to be provided.

The in-combination collision mortality total for all windfarms is a rather more significant 532.9 kittiwakes per year. In-combination for LBBGs was 44.

There is an interesting reference to complaints about non-disclosure agreements in section 26.32 in the decision letters but they were not considered to be significant.

Both DCOs get additional compensation measures to provide annual reporting the Secretary of State on kittiwake, LBBG and red-throated diver plus other additions.

The next DCO decision is due on Tuesday 5 April for the Little Crow Solar park, which if granted would be the 100th DCO (the number went down but is now going back up).