[2024] UKUT 123 (LC)

At this juncture it is worth examining the planning circumstances of the various parcels of land that constitute the application, benefitted, and retained land.

In 1993 five parties, Thanet District Council, Bowsprit Holdings Limited, Southern Water Services Limited, Chardon Investments Limited and Chardon Developments Limited entered into an agreement under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Under the section 106 agreement the Council resolved to grant planning permission for the construction of a wastewater treatment works subject to the other parties complying with a series of conditions. In 1998 planning permission appears to have been granted for the construction of a tannery, on what is now the site of the solar farm, but the tannery was never built.

Both the application land and the benefitted land have been identified by the Thanet District Council Local Plan 2020 (adopted in July 2020) as falling within the Stour Marshes Landscape Character Area and the Wantsum North Slopes Landscape Character Area (Thanet Integrated Landscape Character Assessment and Sensitivity Evaluation). The Thanet District Council Landscape Character Assessment 2017 describes the application land as “an open rural landscape without significant development”, with “large arable fields” and being an “intensively farmed arable landscape with few detracting features” (Landscape Character Assessment paragraph 4.102).

The Wantsum North slopes are described in the Character Assessment as:

The Richborough Energy Park, the solar farm, the anaerobic digester, part of the A256 dual carriageway, and presumably the SSSI, all lie within the Landscape Character Areas.