“We are deeply disappointed by today’s decision,” Fylde Council leader Karen Buckley said after the government approved the Morgan and Morecambe transmission assets on 14 September 2026. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has granted development consent for the infrastructure that will bring power ashore from the Morgan and Morecambe offshore wind schemes. (new.fylde.gov.uk) For Lancashire, this is where an offshore energy story becomes an onshore one. According to project material, the works stretch from a landfall area between Blackpool and Lytham St Annes, through cable routes and substations, and on to the existing National Grid substation at Penwortham. (morecambeandmorgan.com)

This consent is not about turbines alone. The Planning Inspectorate says it covers offshore export cables, landfall works, onshore export cables, substations, grid connection cables, circuit breaker compounds and related infrastructure. In plain English, it is the wiring that gets electricity off the Irish Sea and into the grid. (gov.uk) That is why places such as Kirkham, Newton-with-Scales, the Fylde coast and Penwortham have followed the case so closely. The applicant’s own material identifies search areas and corridors across those parts of Lancashire, which explains why the debate has been so sharp locally. (morecambeandmorgan.com)

There has been nothing quick about the process. The joint application from Morgan Offshore Wind Limited and Morecambe Offshore Windfarm Limited went into the Planning Inspectorate on 21 October 2024, was accepted on 18 November 2024, and after a six-month examination the Examining Authority sent its recommendation to ministers on 29 January 2026. (gov.uk) According to the Planning Inspectorate, local people, councils and other interested parties were able to take part throughout the examination, which was completed within the timetable set by the Planning Act 2008. The case was the 113th energy application decided out of 181 examined so far. (gov.uk)

That official line will do little to ease the frustration at town hall level. Fylde Council said the approval would come as “a blow” to residents, community groups and parish councils that opposed the cabling corridor, and confirmed officers have been told to review the paperwork with legal advice now being taken on the options available. (new.fylde.gov.uk) It is a familiar split in big energy schemes. National ministers see grid capacity and clean power; people on the route see land use, construction activity and the question of where the infrastructure finally sits. In Fylde and around Penwortham, that difference in perspective has shaped the argument from the start. (new.fylde.gov.uk)

There is a wider northern point here too. Offshore wind targets are usually announced in gigawatts and deadlines, but projects only move when cables land, substations are approved and communities are told what will happen nearby. This consent is another reminder that the North West is not just hosting the energy transition at sea; it is carrying a good deal of the groundwork onshore as well. (gov.uk) The Planning Inspectorate says the decision documents, the Examining Authority’s recommendation and the evidence used in reaching that recommendation are now publicly available. That gives residents, campaigners and local firms the full paper trail to pick through as the next phase begins. (gov.uk)

The formal decision was made by Baroness Curran using the Energy Secretary’s legal authority. In planning terms, the government has now said yes, with the Development Consent Order and its conditions forming part of the package described by Fylde Council. (gov.uk) For communities from the shoreline between Blackpool and Lytham St Annes to the grid connection at Penwortham, that does not mean the row disappears. It means the focus shifts from whether ministers would sign the scheme off to how the works are carried out, how the conditions are tested and whether local objections find any further route forward. (morecambeandmorgan.com)