Register of advice

The list below is a record of advice the Planning Inspectorate has provided in respect of the Planning Act 2008 process.

There is a statutory duty under section 51 of the Planning Act 2008 to record the advice that is given in relation to an application or a potential application and to make this publicly available. Advice we have provided is recorded below together with the name of the person or organisation who asked for the advice and the project it relates to. The privacy of any other personal information will be protected in accordance with our Information Charter which you should view before sending information to the Planning Inspectorate.

Note that after a project page has been created for a particular application, any advice provided that relates to it will also be published under the ‘s51 advice’ tab on the relevant project page.

Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived. View the archived advice.

Enquiry received via email

East Anglia ONE North Offshore Windfarm View all advice for this project

26 July 2018
Elizabeth Thomas

Enquiry

Query regarding selection of Zone 7 Friston by Scottish Power for the onshore wind farm substation and grid connection.

Advice given

Thank you for your email of 4 July 2018 and the attached documents regarding Friston site selection process for the East Anglia ONE North and East Anglia TWO projects.
The Planning Inspectorate (the Inspectorate) is a government agency and part of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) responsible for examining Development Consent Order applications for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). The Inspectorate makes a recommendation to the relevant Secretary of State who will then make a final decision whether to grant or to refuse development consent. The SoS of Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is the relevant minister in regards to energy projects. However, the Inspectorate has no remit in regards to creating planning Policies. It can provide procedural advice and in relation to these specific projects, any advice issued can be found here: East Anglia TWO and East Anglia ONE North.
As the projects have not yet been submitted to the Inspectorate, the Inspectorate has no formal powers to intervene on consultees’ behalf and we are therefore not in a position to supervise the statutory consultation process conducted by the Applicant.
As part of the pre-application stage in the Development Consent Order (DCO) process, an Applicant has a number of duties that they are required to carry out which include extensive surveys and consultations to identify, for example, any suitable areas for investigation and selecting the cable route corridors, and substations.
The Applicant, as part of its Statement of Community Consultation (SoCC), is required to set out how they intend to conduct consultation on a project and in relation to the East Anglia projects. Whilst the Inspectorate cannot comment on the Applicant’s selections, more detailed information on the project can be found on the Applicant’s websites SPR - East Anglia TWO and SPR - East Anglia ONE North which also includes their reasoning for the choices of the Zone 7: SPR - Summary and Approach to Site Selection.
I would encourage you to continue engaging with the developer directly to make your concerns heard as the Applicant has a statutory duty to have regard to all consultation responses which should be demonstrated in the in the Consultation Report as part of the DCO application. However, if you feel that your comments are not being taken into account, I would advise you to write to your local authority and set out why you think the applicant is failing to conduct is consultation properly. Your comments should be taken into account by the local authority when sending the Inspectorate its comments on whether the applicant has fulfilled its consultation duties. The local authority’s comments on the applicant’s consultation will be taken into account when the Examining Inspector makes their decision whether to accept the application for examination.
Should the DCO application be accepted by the Inspectorate for examination, the Applicant has a duty to publicise the accepted application and provide information on how to register as an Interested Party.
The process under the Planning Act 2008 (PA 2008) has been designed to allow members of the public and statutory stakeholders to participate in examination of all DCO applications so that anyone interested in the proposed developments, their potential impacts and any relevant matters can be fully engaged in the examination process.
During the examination, the Examining Authority has a duty to take into account all matters assessed by the Applicant in the Environmental Statement and may ask additional questions as required. More information is provided in the Planning Inspectorate’s Advice notes Advice Note 8: Overview of the nationally significant infrastructure planning process for members of the public and others, and at the current pre-application stage we would recommend especially Advice note 8.1. Responding to the developer’s pre-application consultation and Advice Note 8.2. How to register to participate in an Examination.
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Please note, in accordance with Section 51 of the PA2008, a summary of your query and our advice will be published on the project’s webpage of the National Infrastructure Website.


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