Council green light for £200m Yorkshire Energy Park plans

Plans for a £200m energy park in East Yorkshire have been approved by councillors.

The proposed Yorkshire Energy Park development was presented to East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s planning committee yesterday, with councillors narrowly voting in favour of the scheme.

But the decision is still likely to be called in by the Secretary of State as a departure from the Local Plan.

The development on the site of the former Hedon Aerodrome is intended to attract significant investment, with the ability to create up to 4,480 jobs, including up to 2,090 full time jobs across a wide range of business sectors once the Park is built and operational.

It will include an energy centre, data centre and disaster recovery suite, space for established and start-up businesses, education, training and research facilities alongside associated short-stay accommodation, an outdoor building materials and testing facility, and sports facilities for the community.

Major businesses already interested include E.ON Germany, Asanti Data Centres, Dell, SSE, leading battery manufacturer BYD, electric scooter consortium Eco Motion.

Infrastructure funder Legal & General has come out in support of the scheme as well as Humber Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), the region’s biggest business body, Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) and Hull College Group.

Yorkshire Energy Park is the trading name of Hull Eco Parks Limited. Hull Eco Park is made up of a consortium of companies which have been brought together to progress the development.

It includes Yorkshire-based developer Sewell and Eco Parks Developments who have joined forces with London-based Chiltern – a national renewable energy, infrastructure and technology project facilitator – to deliver this ambitious project.

The consortium has explained: “The fundamental reason for this site is the presence, on the western side of Staithes Road, of a connection to the National Grid.

“This site can offer clean, reliable energy, at significantly less cost than the market for on-site users; energy can also be sold back to the grid.

“It is the only site on the north bank of the Humber where this grid connection exists with sufficient capacity for import/export of energy and where there is a piped natural gas fuel supply already on site.”