Securing consent for a project of this scale and novelty was no small undertaking. The proposals required a development consent order from the Secretary of State following examination by an independent Examining Authority. The applicant also had to navigate multiple consenting processes before different decision-makers, an objection from Orsted — an offshore windfarm developer that sought to use the same area of seabed needed for the project's carbon store — and close scrutiny, including from a climate campaigner, of how the project's overall greenhouse gas emissions had been assessed.

That scrutiny continued after consent was granted. In R (Boswell) v Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero[2025] EWCA Civ 669, the Court of Appeal considered three grounds of challenge concerning the assessment of greenhouse gas emissions under the Environmental Impact Assessment regime. The case raised questions of broad significance for major infrastructure, in particular how what are ultimately individual decisions to grant consent for a particular project (albeit a large scale one) should be assessed within the overall framework of reaching net zero emissions.

Hereward Phillpot KC of Francis Taylor Building acted for Net Zero Teesside Power Limited and Net Zero North Sea Storage Limited throughout, leading on behalf of the developers from pre-application through to the Court of Appeal.

"Net Zero Teesside is an exciting and innovative project that I was involved in from the pre-application stage, through the examination process and decision-making by the Secretary of State and then in the High Court and Court of Appeal to resist an application for judicial review on climate change grounds. The case raised many interesting and complex issues, including managing the inter-relationship between multiple consenting processes before different decision-makers, fighting off an objection from Orsted, an offshore windfarm developer wanting to develop the same piece of seabed that my client needed for its carbon store, and then defeating a challenge from a climate change campaigner concerning how the overall greenhouse gas emissions of the project had been assessed."

Work of this kind — bringing planning, environmental and public law together on projects at the cutting edge of the energy transition — has long defined practice at Francis Taylor Building.