The Development Consent Order (DCO) process

In October 2022, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy issued a direction under section 35 of the Planning Act 2008 that the Project should be treated as a development for which development consent is required.

Consent to construct, operate, maintain, and decommission the Project will therefore be sought under the Planning Act 2008.

The Morgan Offshore Wind Project and the Morecambe Offshore Windfarm (Generation Assets) are each considered to be Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (“NSIPs”) and will be the subject of separate applications for development consent.

We submitted our application for development consent for the Project to the Planning Inspectorate on Monday 21 October 2024, and it was formally accepted on Monday 18 November 2024.

We are now in the pre-examination stage, during which you can register as an interested party and submit a relevant representation which the Planning Inspectorate will consider during its examination. The deadline for submitting relevant representations is 27 January 2025.

During the examination stage, the Planning Inspectorate will examine the application with input from interested parties and statutory consultees.

The examination period is expected to be a maximum of six months.

Following the examination, the examining authority will present its recommendation to the Secretary of State, who will then make the final decision on whether the application should be granted development consent.

We anticipate a final decision being made on our application in 2026.

For more information on the DCO process, you can visit the Planning Inspectorate website, here.