The Project’s Examination begun following the conclusion of the Preliminary Meeting on Tuesday 28 January 2025.
This was followed by Open Floor Hearing 1 the next day, on Wednesday 29 January 2025.
You can watch recordings of the Preliminary Meeting and Open Floor Hearing 1 via the links provided.
Image: North Falls’ onshore location plan.
The Planning Inspectorate has since issued a Rule 8 letter which includes:
• The Examination timetable
• An invitation to submit written representations
• Details of the publication of the Examining Authority’s (ExA) written questions
• Procedural decisions made by the ExA
• Notification of hearings
• Information about hearings and accompanied site inspections
• Information about the availability of Examination documents
• Guidance on the use of the ‘make a submission’ tab on the Project page of the Planning Inspectorate’s website
Image: Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm. North Falls Offshore Wind Farm’s design may differ. Credit: SSE Renewables.
The Planning Inspectorate has made a procedural decision to hold the following hearings:
• Issue Specific Hearing (ISH1) on 2, 3 and 4 April 2025
• Issue Specific Hearing (ISH2) ON 8, 9 and 10 April 2025
ISH1 and ISH2 will be blended events, so part in-person and part virtual.
The week beginning 16 June 2025 has also been reserved for further Issue Specific Hearing(s), Compulsory Acquisition Hearing(s) and Open Floor Hearing(s), if required.
For more information, please refer to the Rule 8 letter, in which the full Examination timetable is provided, and register to receive Project updates directly from the Planning Inspectorate here.
Image: North Falls’ offshore location plan.
The overriding aim of an Examination is to ensure that issues are proportionately, and reasonably, considered.
The examination of applications is principally on the basis of written submissions, supplemented where necessary by hearings held in public, either in-person, virtually, or a blend of the two.
Inspectors assigned by the Planning Inspectorate (known as the Examining Authority or ‘ExA’) have held the Preliminary Meeting and subsequently set the timetable for Examination, as described above.
Examination will take up to six months and should conclude by the end of July 2025.
Following the close of Examination, the Project will enter the Recommendation stage, during which the Planning Inspectorate has three months to prepare a report and make a recommendation to the Secretary of State. The Project then enters the Decision stage, during which the Secretary of State has a further three months to make a decision as to whether to grant the Project development consent.
Once a decision has been issued by the relevant Secretary of State, there is a six-week period in which the decision may be challenged in the High Court. This process of legal challenge is known as Judicial Review.
If granted development consent, we currently anticipate phased construction taking a maximum of five years, beginning with pre-construction works expected to take place from 2027.
North Falls is aiming to be operational by the end of the decade.
The Project’s Development Consent Order (DCO) application was submitted on 26 July 2024 and accepted for Examination by the Planning Inspectorate, on behalf of the Secretary of State, on 22 August 2024. Following which, the Project entered the Pre-examination stage. The Pre-examination stage included the following activity:
• Receipt of Relevant Representations by the Planning Inspectorate: This process concluded on 18 October 2024. You can view the Relevant Representations submitted by Interested Parties here. You can read more about Relevant Representations and why they are important in paragraph four of the government’s guidance on the Pre-application stage.
• Identification of Interested Parties and affected persons: This process concluded on 18 October 2024.
• Appointment of the Examining Authority: The Examining Authority (ExA) was appointed on 13 September 2024. This was confirmed by the publishing of a Rule 4 letter under sections 61 and 65 of the Planning Act 2008.
• Initial assessment of principal issues by the Examining Authority: These were included in the Rule 6 letter issued on 10 December 2024.
• Holding a Preliminary Meeting: This took place on 27 January 2025. You can watch a recording of the Preliminary Meeting here.
All of the Project’s application documents can be viewed via the documents tab of the Project page on the Planning Inspectorate’s website.
