The Appeal Court has upheld a High Court judge’s decision that the secretary of state could refuse to grant a Development Consent Order for the Mynydd y Gwynt wind farm because the developer provided insufficient information to approve it.

The then secretary of state, Amber Rudd, had refused consent because of uncertainty over whether the wind farm would have a detrimental effect on red kites in the area.

In his regular blog, lawyer Angus Walker at Bircham Dyson Bell noted that a the DCO decision had been made in “a fairly typical time of 16 months”. The High Court had taken 11 months and the Court of Appeal another 16 months to make their decisions. “Despite the creation of a planning court, the High Court hasn’t been that quick, and the Court of Appeal has been even slower. It shouldn’t take nearly twice as long to deal with legal challenges as it did to reach the original decision,” said Walker.