On 16 January the UK’s Planning Inspectorate published its decision on Sunbury BESS Limited’s Appeal of the refusal of its planning application made by a 12:2 majority of the Spelthorne Borough Council’s Planning Committee on 17 September 2025.
The Planning Inspectorate agreed that the proposed BESS development on Green Belt land to the northeast of the Eco Park in Charlton Lane represented an ‘inappropriate development that would cause considerable harm to the openness of the Green Belt’ and ‘conflict with its purpose to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment’. It does however believe that ‘very special circumstances’, in the guise of a potential ‘contribution to the mitigation of climate change and the regulation of electricity flows within the wider supply network’, justify the building of this large and novel industrial development.
LOSRA has strongly opposed the various Sunbury BESS proposals in all three of its iterations since 2024; in doing so, it and its neighbouring RAs in Charlton Village and Shepperton have been fortunate in having individuals with the knowledge and experience of the electricity supply industry to understand and assess exactly what was being proposed. We are therefore extremely concerned to find that the Appeal Decision document published by the Planning Inspectorate contains a number of errors, inconsistencies and anomalies. It even appears to be granting permission to a scheme which, on one significant element at least, is at variance with the revised version of 24/01112/FUL that was submitted by Sunbury BESS Limited on 11 June 2025, refused permission on 17 September and then appealed.
Our three neighbouring RAs have closely analysed the Appeal Decision document and are submitting a detailed joint letter to the Planning Inspectorate which contains a list of our observations. Although the judgement cannot be overturned without recourse to a judicial review by the High Court – a move which would be way beyond the means of our RAs – we are requesting that factual errors and inconsistencies should at least be acknowledged and corrected. We will post an update on this in due course.
