Stonestreet Green Solar DCO correction order 2026

A helpful case study landed this month. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero signed the Stonestreet Green Solar (Correction) Order 2026 on 5 February 2026, and it came into force on 6 February 2026. According to the legislation notice, it tidies errors in the Stonestreet Green Solar Order 2025 (S.I. 2025/1175).

If you teach planning or energy policy, here’s the quick context. Major projects like large solar farms are consented through Development Consent Orders (DCOs) under the Planning Act 2008. A DCO is a legal instrument that sets the permission, the plans and drawings, and a bundle of ‘certified documents’ everyone must follow during construction and operation.

Sometimes those long document schedules contain mistakes-think wrong titles, numbering slips, or missing entries. The Act anticipates this. Schedule 4 lets the Secretary of State correct errors and omissions without reopening the planning merits. It is about accuracy, not relitigating whether the scheme should be built.

In this order, the Secretary of State records that the applicant asked for corrections within the Act’s ‘relevant period’, and the relevant local planning authorities were notified. That is the standard due‑process check so everyone affected knows a tidy‑up is happening and can see precisely what is changing.

So what actually changed? The correction updates the list of certified documents. It adjusts references linked to the ‘outline operational surface water drainage strategy’ and then adds a missing entry for the Environmental Statement material: “Chapter 8: Landscape and Views Figures 8.1–8.11.4 (Part 1 of 2)”, identified as 5.3(A), dated March 2025, with the examination library code [REP4-012]. For teams on site, these small fixes matter because they point you to the exact file you are required to use.

Think of it like fixing a bibliography in an assignment. You are not changing the argument; you are correcting the page numbers and adding the source that was left out. In project delivery terms, that reduces delay, avoids disputes about which drawing is “the one”, and helps regulators and contractors talk from the same pack.

The order is made under section 119 and paragraphs 1(4) and 1(8) of Schedule 4 to the Planning Act 2008. It is formally titled the Stonestreet Green Solar (Correction) Order 2026 and is signed by John Wheadon, Head of Energy Infrastructure Planning Delivery & Innovation at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. That signature signals the legal switch from “error spotted” to “error fixed”.

If you are studying how DCO corrections work, the sequence here is a neat template you can reuse in class: the applicant spots an error and writes in; the department alerts the local planning authorities; the Secretary of State makes a short statutory instrument; a schedule sets out exactly where to make the edits and what text to substitute, insert or omit. The public record on legislation.gov.uk then carries the corrected version alongside the note explaining why.

What this means for learners and early‑career practitioners: always read the certified documents schedule alongside any DCO. Check titles, document numbers, and dates. If you see inconsistencies, there is a defined route to fix them, and it does not change the policy balance that underpinned the consent-it simply makes the consent clearer to use.

For educators, this order is a ready‑to‑teach example. Set a short task: ask students to compare a certified documents list before and after a correction and identify the practical risks if the fix had not been made. By the end, they should be able to explain what a DCO is, when a correction order is appropriate, and how small text edits can have big real‑world effects on delivery. The record for this case sits on legislation.gov.uk, which is the official public source.