A HAMPSHIRE woman has succeeded in quashing Test Valley Borough Council's decision to allow changes to planning consent for a solar farm.

A High Court judge ruled that the amendments to the solar farm in Woodington Road, East Wellow, were incompatible with the original conditions.

The council said it is considering the implications of the court ruling.

In July 2017, Test Valley Borough Council granted permission to Woodington Solar Limited for the development, which included ground-mounted solar panels and an electricity substation.

A condition said the development "shall not be carried out other than in complete accordance with the approved plans comprising drawings".

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In May 2021, the council granted planning permission for the installation of a different electricity substation, ground-mounted solar panels, ancillary equipment, infrastructure and access. 

Last year, the High Court dismissed a judicial review challenge to the 2021 consent, brought by local resident Chala Fiske. 

This was followed by a third application to vary the conditions of the original consent, which was granted in April 2022.

Mrs Fiske began fresh judicial review action against the 2022 consent, contending that permission was unlawful.

She argued that, by removing the substation permitted in the 2017 permission, the 2022 permission "conflicts with the operative wording of the [2017] permission and/or that fundamentally alters the development permitted under the original permission."

The High Court judgement said: "In the present case condition 2 of the 2022 permission is inconsistent with and in conflict with the operative wording of the original permission which the 2022 permission sought to vary. If, upon grant of the 2022 permission, the word 'substation' had been excised from the operative wording then the 2022 permission would have clearly been unlawful. The mere fact that it has not been excised does not lead to any different conclusion.

"I therefore conclude that there is a conflict between what was permitted in the original permission and what condition 2 in the 2022 permission required. For this reason, the 2022 permission was outside the power conferred by section 73 TCPA and was thus unlawful."

A Test Valley Borough Council spokesman said: “Following judicial review of a decision regarding a solar farm in East Wellow in 2022, which was subject of a hearing earlier this year, the council has now been informed of the court’s decision and the permission has been quashed. We are therefore considering the implications of this.”

Woodington Solar Limited's parent company Hive Energy has been contacted for a comment.

Wellow Parish Council had no objection to the latest variation which Mrs Fiske has succeeded in quashing.