The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero granted development consent on 27 October 2026 for the Great North Road Solar and Biodiversity Park, a solar and battery storage project with a maximum generation capacity of 800MW. The applicant is Elements Green Trent Limited.
What has been approved
The development consent order covers a solar photovoltaic generating station, a battery energy storage system and the connection infrastructure needed to link the site to the National Grid. The order allows the project to export and import up to 800MW. The decision was taken by Baroness Curran on behalf of the Energy Secretary.
Projects of this size are treated as nationally significant infrastructure, so they are decided by ministers rather than local councils.
How long it took
The application was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate on 27 June 2025 and accepted for examination on 22 July 2025. The six-month public examination, in which local people, the local authority and other interested parties could give evidence, ended with a recommendation to the Secretary of State on 28 July 2026. The decision came three months later.
The Planning Inspectorate says this was the 117th energy application out of 185 examined to date, and that it was completed within the statutory timescale set by the Planning Act 2008.
What it means
Consent is not construction. The project is now at the post-decision stage, and the order can still be challenged in the courts. It also needs a grid connection and a final investment decision before building can start. We have not seen a construction timetable or a start date for generation, so none is given here.
For households, large solar projects add low-cost generation at the times of day when the sun is strongest. Paired with batteries, they can store some of that output for the evening peak. The consent follows other recent approvals, such as the Green Hill and Steeple solar farms. See our UK energy overview for how solar fits into the wider mix.