Planning applications can be expensive undertakings, but one local authority has been hit with unexpected costs after the Planning Inspectorate ruled not only that a Gridserve EV hub should not have been refused permission, but that Hartlepool Borough Council must pay the chargepoint operator’s legal fees.
Back in 2022 Gridserve applied to the council for planning permission to build a 42-bay EV charging hub, which would sit alongside a vast solar farm covering around 240 acres and comprising over 72,000 photovoltaic panels, four miles to the west of Hartlepool, County Durham.
Hartlepool Borough Council’s planning officers recommended the project be green lit, but the council itself went against this, refusing the application after ruling it would increase traffic in the area, with this having “a potential adverse impact on highway safety and congestion” on the main road adjoining the hub’s entrance.
Gridserve subsequently launched an appeal against this refusal with the government’s Planning Inspectorate, which ruled in the chargepoint operator’s favour in a scathing judgement, and ordered the council must pay the firm’s legal costs for the appeal.
The Inspectorate observed that “neither the Highway Authority nor National Highways held any outstanding objections” to the project and noted that “in the past five years of recorded accidents, there was one slight injury within 200m of each side of the proposed new access location” judging that “one slight injury accident near to the proposed new access location does not suggest a specific highway safety problem on such a busy road”.
The appeal ruling also detailed that the charging hub “will primarily serve passing traffic”, and stated that the council “has not explained why the eleven accidents near that junction, at least 1km away from the proposed access point, has relevance to the reason for refusal in terms of direct correlation or causation”.
In an unusual move, and despite Gridserve not applying for one, the Inspectorate issued a Costs Decision in Gridserve’s favour, noting that while “parties in planning appeals normally meet their own expenses”, it considered Hartlepool Borough Council had both “prevented development which should clearly have been permitted”, and “failed to produce evidence to substantiate its reason for refusal on appeal, with vague, generalised and inaccurate assertions”. The council must now reimburse Gridserve for the legal costs it entailed appealing against the initial refusal.
