‘We welcome the court’s decision, which provides further certainty for the Woolley Solar Farm project and confirms the robustness of the planning process,’ said Mark Hogan, founder of BOOM Power.
June 12, 2026
The UK High Court has dismissed a legal challenge raised by a local resident against independent power producer (IPP) BOOM Power, which had received planning permission to build the 29.7MW Woolley solar PV project in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
The resident, identified in court documents as “Lang J.”, argued that the process by which the local planning authority (LPA) had gone about awarding planning permission in August 2025—namely, disagreeing with an assessment made by its design and conservation officer that local views would be “spoiled” by the installation of solar panels—was flawed.
However, Sir Tim Kerr, a judge of the High Court, wrote in his conclusion, dated 29 May and published by BOOM Power this week, that Lang’s arguments “lack merit”.
“In my judgment, on close scrutiny, these grounds lack merit,” wrote Kerr. “As the application and the process of examining it evolved, different judgments and opinions were formed and held by different parties at various times. That is both normal and lawful; indeed, it is a mark of a healthy consultation process and consideration by the LPA of its fruits.”
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“We welcome the court’s decision, which provides further certainty for the Woolley Solar Farm project and confirms the robustness of the planning process,” added Mark Hogan, founder of BOOM Power. “This is an important scheme that will contribute to the UK’s renewable energy capacity and net zero ambitions, following a thorough and properly tested planning determination.”
BOOM Power said that it expects to complete construction work at the project in “around nine months”.
The victory for BOOM Power follows years of uncertainty regarding the project, for which the IPP first sought planning permission in December 2023. The site is on green belt land to the east of the M1 Motorway, across from the Bretton Hall Registered Park and Garden, a Grade II listed building; Kerr described this application to build a solar project on such a site as “ambitious” at the time.
However, the publication of a new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) by the government in December 2024 aimed to remove barriers to the deployment of renewable energy projects by urging planning authorities to give “significant weight” to the energy transition benefits associated with new renewable energy installations.
The framework also introduced the so-called ‘grey belt’, areas of land once described as green belts that are considered poor-quality land, a category into which the land for the Woolley project fits.
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The planning process also noted that there would likely be “no significant adverse impact” of the project’s deployment on this site. As a result, the planning committee granted planning permission to the project on 7 August 2025, agreeing with an assessment made by planning officers that “whilst there would be a change to the character of the field from agricultural to developed as a solar farm, the impact would be localised and the negative impact on the landscape is considered to be limited.”
It was this 7 August decision to which Lang objected, saying that the grey belt designation was “a political sleight of hand” that “seeks to bypass long-standing protections for our countryside”. However, the same documents suggest that he was not confident in the success of his objection, noting that “he anticipated that the development would be allowed”. 
Similar appeals have seen grey belt projects go ahead, with objections the like of the one to BOOM's project doing little other than to slow development and add expense.
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JP Casey
Section Editor, Informa
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