6th November 2018

A proposal for a new gas-fired power station in open countryside near Old Hutton, three miles from Kendal was turned down by planning committee for a second time this year on Friday 2nd November, by a whisker.

Thirty eight members of the public, joined landscape conservation charity Friends of the Lake District’s planning officer Lorayne Wall to speak against the proposal at the planning committee meeting.

South Lakeland District Council had recommended it for approval, despite significant objections from local residents.

Members of the planning committee voted 5 votes to 5, with one abstention and the chair having the casting vote, voted against accepting the application. A proposal for a larger power station and battery storage facility on the site of an existing electrical substation was turned down in January this year.

The application covered an area of just over three hectares of land, in open countryside close to Old Hutton village, and would have roughly doubled the size of the existing electricity substation there. Many in local communities have campaigned against the proposals since their original submission in May 2017.

The original application, for a 49.99MW battery storage facility and a 49.99MW gas fired electricity generation station on land to the north of the Old Hutton Substation, was turned down by planners in January this year.

This new application for a gas fired power station at the site is without the battery storage facility this time.

Friends of the Lake District objected to the two original schemes and also objected to the recent proposal, on the same grounds as our earlier objection, on the basis of landscape and visual impacts in a rural agricultural landscape, transport impacts on the local rural roads, including through nearby villages and hamlets, and the removal of diverse hedgerow and trees to enable access.

Read more about this and our response here.

Lorayne Wall, Friends of the Lake District’s planning officer, said: “We were pleased that proposals for a gas-fired power station in open countryside near Old Hutton were rejected for the second time this year on Friday. This was due in no small part to almost 40 local community members, along with MP Tim Farron and the Leader of South Lakeland District Council, Giles Archibald, who all spoke strongly against the proposal at planning committee.”


Update 31st October 2018

South Lakeland District Council has recommended the proposal for a gas fired power station at Old Hutton for APPROVAL. We will be appearing at the planning committee meeting on Friday 2nd November to present our objections to the proposal.

Update 13th July 2018

Gas fired power station at Old Hutton resubmitted

The applicant has lodged a new application for a gas fired power station at the site. It is a resubmission and replaces the two earlier applications, for a gas fired electricity generating station and a battery storage facility that were rejected in January. This time the new application is for a 49.99W gas fired power station on the site (no battery storage facility).

Friends of the Lake District objected to the two original schemes and also object to the current proposal, on the same grounds as our earlier objection, on the basis of landscape and visual impacts in a rural agricultural landscape, transport impacts on the local rural roads, including through nearby villages and hamlets, and the removal of diverse hedgerow and trees to enable access.

View our response here.

You can view the proposal on the South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) website here by searching on reference SL/2018/0388. You can also arrange to view the applications at the SLDC offices in Kendal.

You can respond to this application by submitting comments via the SLDC website, or by email, send your comments to [email protected] OR write to:

Development Management Group Manager
South Lakeland House
Lowther Street
Kendal
LA9 4DL

You must quote the reference SL/2018/0388 in your correspondence. The official deadline for making comments has now passed, (20th July) but you can still send comments in until the planning committee meeting at which the decision will be made. There is currently no date for this yet.

Our response to the previous applications can be read here.

Update 5th January 2018

South Lakeland District Council Planning Committee has rejected two applications for a 49.99MW Battery storage facility and a 49.99MW gas fired electricity generation station on land to the north of the Old Hutton Substation.

Read our full press release

Update 11th October 2017

We expected this application would go to Committee in late September. However, there has been an ongoing dialogue between South Lakeland District Council and the Planning Inspectorate as to whether or not the two applications should be determined by the council or under the NSIP (Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project) process by the Planning Inspectorate, given both are marginally under the 50MW threshold but cumulatively are far above that threshold. An extension of time, until 5th January 2018, to determine the applicant has been agreed. 

Update 27th June 2017

Application SL/2017/0425 comprising of the Installation of a 49.99 MW battery storage facility with associated equipment, and application SL/2017/0426 comprising of the installation of gas fired electricity generating station.

You can still respond to these applications by submitting comments via the South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) website. The application reference numbers are: SL/2017/0425 and SL/2017/0426 and can be accessed via these links or by searching on the SLDC website.  You can also arrange to view the applications at the SLDC offices in Kendal.

Update 14th June 2017


Application SL/2017/0425 comprising of the Installation of a 49.99 MW battery storage facility with associated equipment, and application SL/2017/0426  comprising of the installation of gas fired electricity generating station.

Friends of the Lake District have assessed the above proposals and objected to both on the basis of landscape and visual impacts, both individually and cumulatively, transport impacts and the removal of diverse hedgerow to enable access. We do not consider that the applications have fully assessed the impacts of these proposals and they do not provide sufficient evidence to substantiate the arguments for the proposals.

Our full response can be read here.

16th May 2017

We are aware that two planning applications have been submitted to South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) for significant energy related infrastructure on land at Greenmoor Bank, Old Hutton Kendal. Our planning officer is currently assessing these proposals and will issue our written responses to the application in due course. Initial assessment has raised concerns over the cumulative impacts of the development alongside current infrastructure as well as the two applications combined. We are particularly concerned regarding detrimental impacts on landscape character and visual amenity from key viewpoints including the Helm.

The application reference numbers are: SL/2017/0425 and SL/2017/0426 and can be accessed via the SLDC website or by arranging to view the application at the SLDC offices in Kendal.