In West Yorkshire, a 50MW battery energy storage system (BESS) at Cooklands Farm, Featherstone, near Wakefield, has secured planning permission on appeal – despite an earlier refusal by the local planning committee on Green Belt grounds.

Developer Root-Power, working with planning consultants Lanpro, appealed the July 2025 refusal, arguing that the site – south of Normanton Industrial Estate and close to Featherstone Substation – should be regarded as “grey-belt”: land that is technically designated as Green Belt but which makes little practical contribution to Green Belt purposes. The inspector accepted that analysis and concluded that the harm to openness was limited and could be mitigated.

A key element in allowing the appeal was national energy policy. The inspector cited the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, which emphasises that current storage capacity falls well short of what is needed to support a decarbonised electricity grid. This unmet national need was treated as a powerful material consideration in favour of the scheme.

Construction is expected to start in 2028, with full commercial operation targeted for 2029 once upgrades to the local super-grid transformers are complete. The project is one of several Root-Power schemes in Yorkshire, with the company now expecting to have over 230MW of storage capacity live in the region by 2030.

For planning applicants, this decision is significant on two fronts. First, it shows that “grey-belt” arguments can succeed where evidence demonstrates limited Green Belt function and strong landscape mitigation. Second, it confirms that inspectors are willing to give considerable weight to national decarbonisation and grid-stability objectives when determining energy infrastructure appeals in England.