A Yorkshire parish council has failed in its bid to block the development of a pulverised fuel ash disposal site.
Whitley Parish Council had been seeking a judicial review of North Yorkshire County Council’s decision to grant EP UK Investments planning permission to develop the site. However, its claim was dismissed by a High Court planning judge yesterday.
Pulverised fuel ash is the ash left over by coal-fired power stations. It can reused as an aggregate in cement and concrete and is classed as a sustainable/recycled material. Its use can reduce carbon emissions in the cement and concrete industries.
EP UK Investments wants to redevelop the Gale Common Ash Disposal Site, near Wakefield. The site was used to dispose of ash from Yorkshire’s power stations from 1963 to 1998.
It is also in the green belt.
EP UK Investments plans to develop the site in seven phases over 25 years, first improving road access and updating industrial buildings on the site so that it can effectively collect and transport the PVA, before turning the site into a country park when the PVA is exhausted.
The company plans to extract 23m tonnes of PVA over a 25-year period.
A planning officer’s report on the project to the local council said development of the site would not have a greater impact on the green belt than what is already there.
North Yorkshire County Council approved the development at a planning meeting in April last year. The vote was tied, and carried on the casting vote of the committee’s chair.
The local parish council mounted a legal challenge to the decision, arguing that the planning officer erred when writing the report.
The case went to trial at Leeds Combined Court Centre in December. And, in a ruling handed down yesterday, High Court judge Mr Justice Lane dismissed the case.
He rejected all of the alleged errors, but also said that, had there been any mistakes, they could have been rectified by making “minor changes” to the report.
“I am conscious of the fact that the application was granted only on the casting vote of the chair,” he said, but “any such changes to the [report] would not, however, have altered the views of members, one way or the other.”
Whitley Parish Council v North Yorkshire County Council and EP UK Investments Ltd
Planning Court (Mr Justice Lane) 9 February 2022
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