**The Tillbridge Solar (Correction) Order 2026** is a post-consent amendment to the legal text governing the Tillbridge Solar project, not a fresh planning determination. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published the decision on 29 April 2026, and the original Tillbridge Solar Order 2025, S.I. 2025/1105, had been made on 14 October 2025 and came into force on 5 November 2025. Under the instrument supplied in the source material, the correction order came into force on 30 April 2026. (gov.uk) GOV.UK guidance describes a development consent order as the statutory order that grants consent for a nationally significant infrastructure project and, where required, can also include powers such as compulsory acquisition and temporary possession. That is the legal framework within which this correction has been made. (gov.uk)
The route used here is the one set out in Schedule 4 to the Planning Act 2008. The Act allows correction only where the decision document contains a correctable error or omission in the part recording the decision itself, and not in the statement of reasons. It also requires the request to be raised before the end of the relevant period and for the relevant local planning authority to be informed. Where the original development consent order had to be made as a statutory instrument, the correction must also be made by statutory instrument. The Tillbridge instrument records that this Schedule 4 procedure was followed. (legislation.gov.uk)
The legal effect is continuity, not replacement. Schedule 4 provides that when a correction is made the original decision and decision document continue in force, with the document treated as corrected from the date set by the correction notice or correction instrument. In practice, that means the Secretary of State has not reopened the merits of the project or issued a new consent; the operative text is the October 2025 DCO as corrected. (legislation.gov.uk)
That point matters because the Tillbridge order is substantial. The certified DCO authorises a ground-mounted solar photovoltaic generating station with gross electrical output above 50 megawatts and also contains detailed provisions on streets, access, temporary stopping up and diversion of public rights of way, and other implementation machinery. Even a limited drafting correction can therefore affect the wording used in requirement discharge, land referencing, notices, contractor instructions and enforcement records. (nsip-documents.planninginspectorate.gov.uk)
For local planning authorities, statutory bodies and project advisers, the administrative task is straightforward but necessary: the working copy used for legal review and post-consent administration should be the corrected text, because Schedule 4 treats the original order as continuing in force in its corrected form from the specified date. For residents and landowners, the correction order is not a re-run of the original examination. The Planning Act notes state that any challenge to a correction decision must be brought within six weeks of the correction notice or, where the correction is made by statutory instrument, within six weeks of publication of that instrument. (legislation.gov.uk)
In the wider energy NSIP programme, this is not unusual. The GOV.UK decisions collection lists correction entries in 2025 for Bramford to Twinstead, Rivenhall, Heckington Fen, West Burton, Oaklands Farm Solar Park and Byers Gill Solar, before the Tillbridge correction was published in April 2026. The practical reading is modest but important: post-consent correction orders are part of the statutory maintenance of complex DCOs, and the corrected text is the version that governs how an authorised project proceeds. (gov.uk)