A number of consents and licences are required for the construction and operation of Humber Gateway Offshore Wind Farm.

The applications for consent for Humber Gateway were accompanied by the three Environmental Statements prepared in accordance with EU and UK law. One covered the offshore elements of the scheme, a second covered the onshore underground cable route and the third the onshore substation and a small section of cable route.

Some of the consents that are required, by law, to build an offshore wind farm are explained below:

Offshore Consents and Licences

Consent for the offshore elements of the project (comprising the turbines, their foundations, the offshore substation, the inter array cables and the export cable to shore) was granted in Feb 2011 by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Marine Management Organisation. 

The principal licences and consents are:

• Consent under Section 36 of the Electricity Act (1989) to construct and operate the offshore wind farm, including all the ancillary infrastructure;
• Licence under the Section 5 of the Food and Environment Protection Act (1985) to deposit material on the sea bed such as turbine foundations and buried cables;
• Consent under Section 34 of the Coast Protection Act (1949) in order to make provision for the safety of navigation in relation to buried cables.

Onshore Planning Permission

Permission for the proposed underground substation, underground cable route and associated works was granted in March 2010 from East Riding of Yorkshire Council (the local planning authority) under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (Section 57).