Planning Consent Awarded

The Sinclair Offshore Wind Farm, part of Crown Estate Scotland’s INTOG leasing round and one of three projects within the Broadshore Hub in the Outer Moray Firth, is working towards securing its main project consents. The official project timeline on Sinclair’s website states that consent applications are to be submitted for all development areas in 2025, with “consent decisions expected” between mid‑2026 and mid‑2027. This window covers the wind farm development area as well as the offshore and onshore transmission development areas identified for the wider Broadshore Hub cluster, of which Sinclair is a constituent project. The envisaged consents would authorise construction and operation of the floating wind farm, located 58 km north of Fraserburgh with an installed capacity of up to 99.5 MW, and its associated transmission infrastructure. Marine Scotland’s online portal for the Broadshore Hub confirms that the project is currently at the pre‑application stage, reinforcing that these consents have not yet been awarded. For the Hub’s wind farm development areas, including Sinclair, a Scoping Report and HRA Screening Report were submitted on 8 January 2024, and a Scoping Opinion was issued on 3 May 2024, all categorised as pre‑application documentation. Taken together, these sources show that detailed environmental and planning scoping work is underway and that the project partners are targeting a consent award decision in the mid‑2026 to mid‑2027 period, after which detailed engineering, procurement, and subsequent construction activities are planned to follow.