Next Steps

We would like to thank everyone who took part in our two rounds of consultation to date and has engaged with us so far.

Your feedback has been important to us in helping to refine our proposals. Since our consultation, we have been making refinements as a result of our ongoing environmental assessments, landowner engagement, and further engagement with key stakeholders, including local planning authorities.

When we are happy that our proposals are ready, we will then submit our application for development consent to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS). We expect to submit our application towards the end of this year.

PINS will examine our proposals and prepare a report for the Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, who will make the final decision on our application.

Once our DCO application has been submitted, the Planning Inspectorate will formally appoint and inspector or panel of inspectors to serve as the Examining Authority. The Examining Authority will make a recommendation on the application to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The Secretary of State makes the final decision on a DCO application.

Our application will include:

  • A Consultation Report: we have a duty to demonstrate how we have taken your views into account in developing our final proposals. Our final application will include a Consultation Report summarising the responses submitted to this consultation along with an explanation of how we’ve taken your views into account in developing our final proposals; and,
  • An Environmental Statement: this will set out what environmental effects we believe our project would have and how we propose to minimise them.

Both reports, along with our other application documents, will be published on the Planning Inspectorate’s website if and when our application has been accepted. We will update our website at this stage and let people know once this has been achieved.

What happens when the application is submitted?

The animation below provides a summary of the application process for Yorkshire GREEN. This process is also explained below:

  1. Once our application has been submitted, PINS has 28 days to accept it and decide if it can proceed to the examination stage.
  2. Once accepted, anyone wishing to be involved in the examination process will be invited to register their interest with PINS.
  3. Those who register their interest will be invited to submit their views on our proposals in writing and may be asked to speak at any public hearings that are held.
  4. PINS will hold an examination. Once completed, PINS will have three months to make a recommendation to the Secretary of State about whether the application should be approved. The Secretary of State then has a further three months to make a final decision.
  5. Subject to our application being approved, construction of the project will start. Should consent be granted in 2024, we anticipate that construction would start in 2025.

Further explanation of the decision-making process for major infrastructure project, in line with the Planning Act 2008, can be found on the Planning Inspectorate’s website: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/application-process/the-process/