Teesside Council Ordered to Pay Developers Costs in Planning Blunder.
- teessidetoday
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
Costs Order against Hartlepool Borough Council set to leave Local Taxpayers footing a bill for Thousands of Pounds following a planning application blunder.
14th Jan 2026
Local Taxpayers could be left having to foot a hefty legal bill towards a developers costs after Hartlepool Borough Council lost its case at a planning appeal. The Governments Planning Inspector has now formally issued a costs order against Hartlepool Borough Council in relation to a failed planning appeal for a solar farm development at Whelly Hill Farm, Worset Lane on the outskirts of the town. .
The decision is set out in papers which are to go before the councils Planning Committee meeting on the 21 January 2026, where its claimed the appeal concerned a major proposal for the construction of a Solar Electric EV Charging Forecourt, alongside a solar photovoltaic (PV) farm, energy storage infrastructure, with access roads, parking, landscaping, and other associated commercial included in the plans.
Not only was the appeal itself allowed when it went before the Planning Inspectorate late last year, but the Planning Inspector went further and granted a full award of the developers costs to be made against Hartlepool Borough Council.
In planning law, a costs order is not routine. Inspectors only grant them where one party is said to have behaved unreasonably, causing the other party to incur unnecessary litigation expenses.
The Inspector’s decision, dated 23 December 2025, concluded that Hartlepool Borough Council’s conduct met that threshold. It means Hartlepool Borough Council is now liable for the appellant’s appeal-related costs — money that will ultimately come from the public purse.
The Council’s Response: “Just Note the Outcome”
Despite the seriousness of the finding, the official recommendation being put to councillors is to simply "Note the Outcome of the Appeal"..
There's also no breakdown provided in the report as to how much the costs award is expected to be, and no indication of whether any internal review of decision-making will take place.
This passive response by the council over the issue has raised obvious questions about the council 'learning lessons' from the incident as well as officer accountability, and whether repeated planning failures are now being treated simply as 'routine', rather than exceptional.
Its claimed Hartlepool Borough Council is developing a growing record of planning appeals being overturned, with costs orders the clearest indicator that something has gone wrong long before a case ever reaches an Inspector.
Planning Inspectors don't take lightly the decision to penalise a local council. When they do, it's usually because policies were clearly misapplied, the evidence was weak, or the Council acted in a way that national guidance clearly discourages, where critics claim that until something changes, residents can expect more appeal losses, more cost awards, and more public money quietly being written off as an acceptable consequences of poor officer decision-making.
