Energy company Good Energy Generation Limited has been blocked from building a 38-hectare wind farm near Bude in Cornwall.
The company had planned to build the farm less than 4km away from the boundary of the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Cornwall Council refused planning permission for the development in 2014.
The company appealed, and in 2016 a planning inspector produced a report that said that “while the public benefits of the scheme were extensive and very weighty… the harm that would be caused to the setting … would … be serious”.
He recommended the appeal should be dismissed.
Then, in July 2017 the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government backed the planning inspector and refused the appeal.
The company made a further appeal to the High Court at a hearing last month before Mrs Justice Lang.
In her ruling today Lang J also refused to overturn the earlier decision, saying that “no error of law” had been made. She dismissed the appeal.
The case may yet continue. The company can still attempt to challenge today’s ruling at the Court of Appeal.
The proposed wind farm could provide almost 90,000 MWh of electricity a year and aimed to run without public subsides, the ruling said.
Good Energy Generation Limited v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and others
Planning Court (Lang J DBE) 25 May 2018
