East Lothian Planning Committee met on Tuesday 4th February and heard three applications including a battery storage facility at Cockenzie.
Members voted seven to four in favour of a proposed response to plans for a battery storage facility on land south-west of Inglis Farm, Cockenzie, consisting of 140 lithium-ion battery containers intended to provide electricity for export to the grid from batteries which would store surplus electricity to be fed into the grid when required at short notice. The item was called off the Scheme of Delegation List by Councillor Yorkston due to local concern.
Applications of this type in Scotland require the consent of Scottish Ministers, with applications processed by the Energy Consents Unit (ECU). The Council is a statutory consultee.
The proposed battery storage facility (BESS), had come to committee in June last year at which point it was agreed to submit an objection to the proposals. Since then, the council’s Chief Planning Officer had liaised with the ECU and conditions for the original objection had been resolved. Planning officers had recommended no objections to the amended application, which is broadly similar to the original, with a small change of splitting the development into two ‘parcels’ of land. An amendment proposed by Councillor McMillan and seconded by Councillor Yorkston was unanimously approved and recommended that the local community councils were to be consulted should a site safety management plan be required and that the ECU should ensure it was satisfied that the site did not pose an unacceptable fire safety risk.
Committee unanimously approved a change to a condition involving landscaping at the Cala Homes (East) Ltd development already well underway at Saltcoats Field, Gullane.
An application to build a new, single storey detached house on garden ground at Dirleton Avenue, North Berwick, was refused six voted to five by the committee. The application had been called off the Scheme of Delegation list by Councillor Allan for a full discussion. A total of nine representations had been received; three of which were letters of objection and six were letters of support. Planners had recommended refusal due to road safety concerns. A motion to continue the application for further information to be provided was outvoted.
The relevant application numbers are: Cockenzie, 24/00008/SGC; Gullane, 24/01266/PM and 18/01366/AMM and North Berwick, 24/01140/P.