Renewable Energy

Planning permission has just been granted by North Lincs Council for one of the largest buildings ever to be built in the area on land close to the South Bank of the Humber at North Killingholme.

The proposed building would measure 520m x 280m x 36m high and would look like the image above.

 The building would be used to manufacture the specialist large steel bases for the new wave of offshore windfarms that are to be built off the East Coast. Working for our clients Able UK, Prism Planning submitted the application to the Council last year, with a full Environmental Statement. 

As Steve Barker of Prism Planning noted, “It’s difficult to appreciate from the image just how large this building needed to be to accommodate the height of these massive structures -but when you understand that they are so large they can’t be moved by road, only short distances on site using very specialist self-propelled modular transporters, and require some of the largest cranes in the world to move them onto ships, you really begin to appreciate how much work is involved”

Projects of this type and scale are technically very challenging and a wide team of specialist disciplines were involved in assessing the impacts of the project, co-ordinated by Prism Planning. Discussions on the potential ecological impact of such a large building caused slight delays but now the go ahead has been given, it takes Able’s new Marine Energy Park a large step closer to being delivered. A multi-million-pound pumping station is currently being built on site by the company to help unlock the development of the wider Marine Park and significant investment has and continues to take place on local wildlife habitat improvements.

Prism Planning were delighted to work with Able and their team to secure the consent which could help secure 600+ direct jobs on site and many more in the supply chain and on the rest of the Marine Park to be built around the site.

Prism Planning acted for Port Clarence Energy Ltd in securing planning permission for a 45MWe renewable energy plant (biomass power station) on land at Clarence Works, off Port Clarence Road, Port Clarence, Stockton-on-Tees.

Prism Planning, led by our Director Rod Hepplewhite, project managed the preparation, submission and post-submission negotiation of the planning application.  The scale of the proposed development and the ecologically sensitive location of the site was such that an Environmental Impact Assessment was required, the preparation of which was coordinated by Prism Planning and involved a host of environmental consultancies plus input from Prism Planning.

Following initial negotiations with Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council regarding screening and scoping of the Environmental Impact Assessment, the planning application was submitted and approved with 16 weeks, an almost unheard of timescale.  Needless to say, our clients were extremely pleased with the timely and successful outcome.