A UK court has dismissed an appeal case brought by Substation Action Save East Suffolk (SASES) against the award of planning permission to two ScottishPower Renewables wind farms off east England.
Justices Coulson, Lewis and William Davis handed down their verdict following a hearing at London’s Court of Appeal in December 2023.
SASES had contested the government’s March 2022 award of Development Consent Orders to the 602MW East Anglia 1 North and 867MW EA2 offshore wind farms, with the case focused on the schemes’ onshore grid elements near Friston.
Its appeal was against an earlier decision by the High Court to reject a judicial review into the planning permits.
Two grounds of contention were raised during the court proceedings – that surface water flood risks associated with the network infrastructure and the cumulative effects of future grid developments had not been properly considered in the decision.
The judges found that SPR had not been required to demonstrate that “whenever there is a risk of flooding from surface water there are no other sites reasonably available”.
On the cumulative impacts argument, they added the then Energy Secretary “was entitled to defer consideration of the effects of the other projects as there was insufficient information available to make an assessment”.
SASES said it was disappointed by the ruling and is now “considering next steps including seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court”.