DESNZ has issued the Byers Gill Solar (Correction) Order 2025 to tidy drafting slips in the development consent granted earlier this year. Signed on 24 October by John Wheadon and in force from 27 October 2025, the department also notified the relevant local planning authorities as required under the Planning Act, according to materials published on GOV.UK.

What changed is narrow but useful. The schedule fixes cross‑references and punctuation across Articles 10, 13 and 14 of the original order and adjusts numbering in Schedules 2 and 11. It also retitles the rights‑of‑way schedule to say “public rights of way to be permanently stopped up” rather than “permanently closed”, reducing ambiguity for highways teams.

What did not change is the underlying consent. Under Schedule 4 of the Planning Act 2008, a correction order updates the decision document while the original decision remains in force; the text simply takes effect as corrected from the order’s commencement date. This is legal housekeeping, not a policy shift.

Byers Gill’s development consent order (DCO) was made on 23 July and took effect on 14 August 2025 as S.I. 2025/934. Government decision documents set a minimum output of 180 MW for the scheme.

The applicant is RWE Renewables UK Solar and Storage Limited. Official papers describe an approximately 490‑hectare site between Stockton‑on‑Tees and Darlington with underground cabling to the Norton National Grid substation. RWE adds a co‑located 180 MW battery and says the project, once operational, could meet the annual needs of around 70,000 typical UK homes, subject to final investment approval.

For residents, landowners and contractors, these textual fixes matter because they remove scope for misreading conditions and speed up routine submissions such as traffic plans. The corrections include aligned references in Article 10 and Article 13 and the clarified Schedule 5 Part 2 title on rights of way.

Key conditions remain unchanged. The DCO requires the project to start within five years of 14 August 2025 and for a phasing scheme to be approved by the relevant planning authority before works begin, effectively setting a construction start window running to August 2030.

From an investor’s standpoint, we read this as administrative housekeeping. The next milestones to watch are RWE’s final investment decision and grid‑related steps; the company has already flagged that the project proceeds only following a successful investment decision.

For anyone wanting to review the certified plans and book of reference, legislation.gov.uk records that they can be inspected during working hours at Darlington Borough Council, Stockton‑on‑Tees Borough Council and Durham County Council offices.