Campaigners opposed to a 125m wind turbine planned for the village of Beccles, on the cusp of the Norfolk Broads, have lost their High Court battle.
High Court judge Sir Ross Cranston dismissed their claims that conditions placed on the development had been breached.
The campaigners, led by local landowner Benjamin Howell, and including a local flying club, have been fighting a long and determined battle against the turbine. The development was also opposed by the Broads Authority and a number of local planning authorities.
Energy company Stamford Renewable Power first applied for planning permission for the project in 2012. The council refused and the power company appealed.
In 2014, a planning inspector recommended approving the project but attached conditions. Howell challenged this, and lost, all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case in 2016.
However, at a court hearing last month lawyers for the campaigners applied to have the development stopped, saying that the local council should not have agreed that the conditions placed on the development had been met.
Specifically, conditions relating to aviation safety and archaeology had been breached and the council failed to properly consult on environmental matters
But in his ruing Sir Ross Cranston disagreed. Among other things, conditions relating to aviation concerns should be treated with a “dose of reality”, the judge said.
“It is well to start with the reality that archaeology barely rated before the inspector,” he said, dismissing that leg of the challenge.
The environmental consultation ground “goes nowhere”, he added.
“This matter has been going on for years, and the development has attracted determined opposition,” the judge said in his ruling. “I cannot accept that any further points about the environmental effects of the turbine would have emerged from publicity and consultation in accordance with the regulations.”
Benjamin Cameron Howell v Waveney District Council
Planning Court (Sir Ross Cranston) 7 December 2018
