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Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived.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
Further to the procedural decision by the Examining Authority can you please clarify the following points: -
You have stated in point 1.1 ?the Examining Authority has decided that the Turbine Area Mitigation Option does amount to a material change but not to the point of constituting a new application?. Can you be specific as to what point the changes would have constituted a new application. As the statement stands it is a very subjective comment with no background information and no indication of what constitutes a new application.
Point 1.3 ?While recognising that the Environmental Statement is based on the Realistic Worst Case Scenario (RWCS), and that the Turbine Area Mitigation Option falls within that scenario, the Examining Authority will need to examine whether the reduction in scale and therefore impacts are sufficient to conclude on its acceptability.? Can you let me know whether you are treating the two options as a single application ? in which case the RWCS I assume is based on the original option 1 or are you treating the two options separately ? If they are being treated separately will the ExA be giving separate decisions on the two options? You also link the reduction in scale to reduction in impacts. This does seem to be influenced by the Developers? statements before evidence has been presented.
Advice given
As explained in the procedural decision letter regarding the Turbine Area Mitigation Option issued on 13 January 2015, the Examining Authority (ExA) has decided that the Turbine Area Mitigation Option does amount to a material change but not to the point of constituting a new application. It can therefore be included in the examination as part of the application (para 1.1). In their letter, the ExA have provided a substantial amount of information to explain their decision to include the Mitigation Option as part of the application. Paragraph 5 explains the ExA?s reasoning, and whilst not specifically addressing your question I believe that this paragraph does clearly explain the ExA?s reasoning in this case.
Regarding your second question, the Turbine Area Mitigation Option will be considered within the existing application. To clarify, the Mitigation Option does not replace the original application, as explained in paragraph 3.5 of the procedural decision. DCLG Guidance allows for more than one option in the draft Order and for the option to be explored as part of the examination. This is what the ExA have decided to do.
