The clock is ticking for Associated British Ports (ABP) after it was given seven days to decide its next move after the High Court threw out its call for a Judicial Review into a plan to build a multi-million pound energy facility on the south bank of the River Humber.
The ruling by Mrs Justice Patterson, sitting in the Justice Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court, effectively brings to an end the port operator’s demand for an official examination of the Government’s decision to grant a Development Control Order (DCO) for the £450m Able Marine Energy Park (AMEP).
If ABP decides to press its argument over the creation of the huge facility, expected to generate at least 4,000 offshore wind industry jobs, its final and only option would be an oral hearing. All that’s needed is a £350 application fee — a miniscule figure compared to the legal costs already stacked up in the long running saga that has now been through a lengthy planning inspection, a Government decision process, and parliamentary review.
The energy park — part of the UK’s largest enterprise zone — was given the green light in October. For years it has been the subject of a bitter wrangle between Able UK and ABP over the compulsory purchase of a triangle of land owned by the port owner, which claims it intended to build a new jetty on the same plot.
Commenting on the latest setback for ABP, the energy company’s executive chairman, Peter Stephenson, said: “It is surely time for them to recognise the game is up.
“Their claims surrounding the so-called Killingholme Triangle, the small area of land which is needed for AMEP, have now been rejected by the hugely detailed and lengthy planning process, overseen by senior planning inspectors, a Government Minister, a Joint Parliamentary Committee — and now by the High Court.
“Every other interest on the Humber, including the local enterprise partnership, the local business community, local authorities, local members of Parliament and their constituents, have looked on in despair as time after time a development of such importance to the area has been delayed and put in jeopardy by the actions of a single company,” Stephenson added.
His remarks were echoed by Lord Haskins, chairman of the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership. “We hope it is the end of the matter,” he said. “There are still things ABP can choose to do, but I hope they don’t do them. We need to get down and work together and I hope this can be the end of this particular story.”
Marcus Walker is assistant director of planning and regeneration at North Lincolnshire Council, the local authority with jurisdiction over the energy park site. “It is time for ABP to give up,” he said. “It has been fighting a losing battle and we now need to get on with this project.
“Able Marine Energy Park is incredibly significant, not least because it will pave the way locally, but on an international level too, establishing North Lincolnshire and the Humber as a world-class centre for renewable energy.”
Associated British Ports — which owns Grimsby, Immingham, Hull and Goole ports — would only say that it was “naturally disappointed” by the High Court ruling.
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