The UK Government is extending the deadline for making a decision to grant or reject a development consent order (DCO) for RWE’s Rampion 2 offshore wind extension project.
The statutory deadline for the decision on Rampion 2 was today, 6 February, but the Planning Inspectorate has set a new deadline of 4 April 2025 to allow time to request further information.
In August 2024 the UK Planning Inspectorate finished a six-month examination of RWE’s application for a DCO for Rampion 2 off south England, in the North Sea.
This was immediately followed by a three-month process to send a recommendation to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband who then had until early February to decide whether to grant or reject the DCO.
If consented, the 90-turbine extension of the existing 400MW Rampion 1 could move into construction in 2026/27 and become operational by 2030.
RWE’s choice of onshore cable route through the South Downs National Park between a landfall site near Climping, Sussex, and substations at Cowfold and Bolney has proved controversial despite being refined at the pre-application stage during successive rounds of consultation.
Examiners also received objections from stakeholders including Natural England who opposed the siting of turbines in the easternmost portion of the 196-square km array area to protect the “defined special quality” of the national park and Sussex Heritage Coast.
RWE said it had addressed concerns by cutting the number of turbines from 116 to 90 following an initial consultation in 2021.