Great North Road Solar and Biodiversity Park Granted Development Consent by Department for Energy Security

The Great North Road Solar and Biodiversity Park development consent order (DCO) application has been granted development consent by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, according to the Planning Inspectorate.

The decision marks the formal government approval for a project that combines a solar photovoltaic generating station with battery energy storage and grid connection infrastructure, and it concludes a process that began more than a year earlier when the application was first submitted for examination.

Scale and Scope of the Approved Project

The consented scheme is for a solar photovoltaic array generating station, a battery energy storage system and grid connection infrastructure, with a maximum generation capacity of 800MW.

Beyond its generation role, the project carries "biodiversity" in its title, and the government's announcement was accompanied by an illustrative image depicting solar panels alongside wildflower habitat, reflecting the park branding under which the proposal was brought forward. No figures beyond the 800MW maximum capacity are given in the announcement, and the department's published material does not state the expected output, location details or the developer's commercial arrangements.

What is confirmed is the composition of the application: generation, storage and the means of connecting to the electricity grid, packaged within a single development consent order.

Timeline from Submission to Decision

The application was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for consideration by Elements Green Trent Limited on 27 June 2025. It was accepted for examination on 22 July 2025, less than a month after submission. The examination itself ran for six months. During that period, the public, statutory consultees and interested parties were given the opportunity to give evidence to the Examining Authority.

The announcement notes that local people, the local authority and other interested parties were able to participate in the examination, and that the Examining Authority listened to and gave full consideration to all local views and the evidence gathered before making its recommendation. Recommendations were made to the Secretary of State on 28 July 2026. The final decision announced was made by Baroness Curran on behalf of the Energy Secretary's legal authority.

The three-month gap between recommendation and decision falls within the framework established by the Planning Act 2008, under which the entire consenting process for nationally significant infrastructure projects operates.

The Planning Inspectorate's Track Record

The Great North Road decision is the 117th energy application examined by the Planning Inspectorate out of 185 applications examined to date. The Inspectorate highlights that the case was completed within the statutory timescale laid down in the Planning Act 2008, a benchmark that the body presents as evidence of its consistent handling of the national infrastructure caseload.

The Planning Act 2008 regime is designed to concentrate the examination of major infrastructure proposals in a single process, with the Examining Authority gathering evidence and local views before passing a recommendation to the relevant Secretary of State, who then takes the final consent decision. The Great North Road Solar and Biodiversity Park followed that route from acceptance in July 2025 through a six-month examination to recommendation in July 2026 and consent in October 2026.

Public Availability of the Decision Material

The decision, the recommendation made by the Examining Authority to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the evidence considered by the Examining Authority in reaching its recommendation are all publicly available on the project pages of the National Infrastructure Planning website.

This publication of the full decision chain, from the Examining Authority's recommendation through the Secretary of State's determination, is standard practice under the regime and allows interested parties to review the basis on which consent was granted.

Community Involvement in the Examination

The announcement places emphasis on the continued opportunity for local communities to be involved in the examination of projects that may affect them. In this case, local people, the local authority and other interested parties participated in the six-month examination.

The Inspectorate states that the Examining Authority listened to and gave full consideration to all local views and the evidence gathered during the examination before making its recommendation to the Secretary of State