Dudley Council to pay price for ‘unreasonably’ approving battery storage plans on green belt
A new battery storage facility has been approved on green belt land in Halesowen after an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.
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Dudley Council previously turned down an application for the battery energy storage system (BESS) at Illeybrook Farm off Illey Lane but government inspector Gareth Thomas upheld an appeal against the decision.
Mr Thomas also ordered the council to pay part of the appellant’s costs after he found the authority had acted unreasonably by being unclear on what its argument would be based on at the appeal, resulting in unnecessary work and expense to the appellant.
While he concluded the development would harm the green belt, Mr Thomas found the benefits to the battle against climate change of renewable energy infrastructure were special circumstances which justified the development.
Paul Barton, from Harris Lamb who oversaw the appeal process for Anglo Renewables, said: “We have gained approval for a number of these vital systems in green belt locations over the past two years, delivering 400MW of clean energy, and we are delighted to have secured a further BESS site further to the inspector’s intervention.
“Both our team and our client are extremely mindful of the issues and requirements for such sites, and work closely with officers to ensure appropriate mitigation measures limit any impact.
“Much of the success of these projects is choosing the correct site and working with officers – not all green belt sites will be appropriate.”
The Illey Lane site will be operational for around 40 years and cover 1.1 hectares.
It will consist of 112 containerised battery storage units, 28 containerised inverters and associated equipment, a four metre high pole with CCTV cameras.
The majority of the structures will be less than three metres high.
Mr Thomas said: “The proposed battery energy storage system (BESS) would allow intermittent renewable energy such as wind and solar power to be stored when supply is high and released to the electricity grid network during times of peak demand.
“Battery storage is an essential part of the system services that will enable the National Grid to handle the change in power flows arising from the growth in power from renewable energy sources.”
Dudley Council is yet to respond to a request for comment from the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
