Council defeats Planning Court challenge to grant of permission for solar farm

Sir Tim Kerr, sitting as a judge of the High Court, heard the case brought by local resident Richard Dixon arguing that Wakefield should not have given Boom Developments planning consent for the installation. The judge criticised “technical and over-legalistic” issues raised against the council.

The site concerned is on green belt land east of the M1 motorway and a railway line. To its west is the Grade II listed Bretton Hall Registered Park and Garden.

Mr Dixon’s first ground was that Wakefield’s planning officer did not have a lawful basis for disagreeing with its design and conservation officer, who had advocated refusal of planning permission because the view from the garden would be spoiled by westward facing solar panels; and that would not be sufficiently mitigated by planting trees.

His second ground was that Wakefield failed to consider whether there was a clear and convincing justification for the part of the scheme that caused harm to the garden and whether it should be refused unless some solar panels were removed from the area concerned.

The third ground was that Wakefield acted in a procedurally unfair manner by failing to reopen consultation with the public at large, the Gardens Trust (a statutory consultee) and a parish council, after the developer had made some amendments once changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) introduced the ‘grey belt’ concept.

Wakefield said it was entitled to depart from the view of the design and conservation officer, that the decision was in line with both national and local policy and the planning committee was not misled. The council said it had not been obliged to reopen the consultation.

A lengthy officer’s report recommended the planning committee should grant permission as the site was grey belt land within the green belt and the solar farm was not inappropriate development.

Sir Tim said: “I do not find force in the criticisms of the officers' report: that an inapplicable statutory provision was cited, that the phrase ‘neutral impact on heritage’ was wrong; and that the degree of less than substantial harm was insufficiently calibrated along a scale.

“These criticisms are technical and over-legalistic. The first is a minor error without consequence. The second is a wrong use of language that misled no one. The third is of no consequence because everyone agreed that the harm could be called moderate or some similar word.”

He said there was no substance in the submission that officers did not understand the law and policies on heritage assets and confused them with landscape and visual issues.

“The second ground of challenge does not fare any better than the first,” Sir Tim noted.

“The focus on the ‘clear and convincing justification' test does not disclose any error of approach in the report or the committee's decision based on it.”

On the procedural unfairness ground, the judge said: “First, I do not accept that the advent of the proposal for additional planting – in response to the warning in January 2025 that permission was, as things stood, not likely to be granted – came close to generating a requirement, as a matter of fairness, to reopen the consultation process.

“It is commonplace for developers to react to objections by proposing measures they hope will be sufficient to overcome them.”

He rejected the case and ordered the claimant to pay Wakefield’s costs up to £5,000 including any VAT.

Mark Smulian