The news marks the latest in a bumpy approval process for the 500MW solar and storage project. Image: Unsplash.

Suffolk y Council has written to the UK government, criticising the decision to approve planning permission for a 500MW solar and storage project on the border of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

Councillors have sent a pre-action protocol letter to the Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero, Ed Miliband. This marks the first step in potential judicial proceedings against the project, which is set to be developed by Sunnica.

The council argues that the secretary of state failed to consider funding arguments that it made at the time of application. They state that the local authority will have to pick up considerable amounts of additional work at significant cost and claim that the amount Sunnica is required to reimburse the council is not sufficient to cover the council’s spending for the project.

Councillor Richard Rout, Suffolk y Council’s deputy cabinet member for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), expressed anger at the Secretary of State, calling Miliband’s choice to approve the project “a terrible start to his tenure”.

Rout continued: “[Miliband] has shown scant regard for the communities affected, and for the local authorities who must pick up considerable amounts of additional work as a result of the project going ahead.

“One of the crucial things he has ignored is the insufficient amount that Sunnica has proposed to reimburse local councils for dealing with conditions attached to the application. This is an embarrassing, clumsy and entirely avoidable error by the Secretary of State. This is why we are taking legal action.”

A bumpy ride for Sunnica

This threat of legal action marks the latest in what has been a long and difficult process for the development of the Sunnica Energy Farm.

Approval for the farm, which is large enough to be classified as an NSIP, was delayed four times by then Secretary of State Claire Coutinho, with approval initially due to be granted in September 2023.

The project was finally approved following the UK general election of July 2024 and the subsequent appointment of Ed Miliband as Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero, one of three solar NSIPs approved on the same day, less than two weeks after Miliband took office.

The speed at which the decision was made following Miliband’s appointment is one of the major points of contention for Councillor Richard Rout, who noted “[Miliband] was only in post for a matter of days before approving a number of energy projects – it would have been impossible for him to fully review the Sunnica application, and to see how flawed it was”.

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