A billionaire stakeholder and Scotland’s richest man has won the right to make a legal challenge against a spaceport near his Highland estates after he spent £1.4m on a rival space project on the Shetland Islands.
Lawyers for billionaire retail tycoon Anders Holch Povlsen have been granted a court hearing in a bid to overturn a decision to grant planning approval for the Sutherland Space Hub.
The businessman objected to the development on environmental grounds and later announced he had invested more than £1.4 million in a rival spaceport on Shetland.
The 48-year-old owns more than 200,000 acres of land in the Highlands.
Scotland’s richest man, Anders Holch Povlsen, pictured with his wife Anne, has won the chance to appeal plans for a spaceport in the Scottish Highlands, where he owns more than 200,000 acres of land
Mr Povlsen’s company Wildland Limited lodged a petition for judicial review against Highland Council’s decision to give the spaceport the go-ahead
Approval was initially granted in June last year for Space Hub Sutherland, which is set to cost around £17.9m.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) hoped to build the satellite launch site on peatland on the Moine Peninsula near Tongue in the Scottish Highlands.
In 2019 Mr Povlsen’s children Alfred, five, Agnes, 12, and Alma, 15, were killed in a terror attack in Sri Lanka that left 253 people dead. Their youngest daughter, Astrid, survived the attack.
Together with his wife Anne Holch Povlsen, the billionaire took out adverts in two regional newspapers to show their ‘deepest appreciation’ to those who expressed condolences after their two children.
The billionaire’s objections to the Highlands space project are now set to be heard, after the Court of Session in Edinburgh has now ruled a review of the decision can proceed and a one-day hearing has been set for April 1.
Approval was initially granted in June last year for Space Hub Sutherland, which is set to cost around £17.9m. Once operating, developers hope it will conduct the UK’s first vertical, orbital rocket launch in the early 2020s – but more than 400 people have objected to the site
Orbex, the UK-based space launch company,was set to fly out of the space hub. But the site’s future hangs in the balance, with a review set to take place on April 1
The Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) project at A’Mhoine, near Tongue in Sutherland, is expected to create more than 200 jobs as satellites are launched from the station.
Highland Council received 457 objections and 118 representations in support of HIE’s planning application for Britain’s first vertical launch spaceport.
The impact on the environment, including the Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands Special Protection Area, and risk to human health were among the reasons for objections.
How a fly-fishing trip ended with 200,000 acres of Scottish land
Anders Povlsen fell in love with Scotland during a fly-fishing trip to the Highlands in the 1980s.
Growing up to become a billionaire retail tycoon, the Dane has amassed thousands of acres land across the country, spanning across 11 estates.
Mr Povlsen has amassed more than 200,000 acres of land across Scotland
He began building the portolio in the autumn of 2006, with the £7.9 million acquisition of Glenfeshie, a 42,000-acre patch of the Cairngorms National Park.
Two years later, he spent another £15.5 million acquiring the 23,000-acre Braeroy estate near Fort William, nearby Tulloch, and Lynaberack in the Cairngorms. Four estates were added between 2011 and 2015, and another three in 2016.
As of 2018 his landholdings covered an area half the size of Worcestershire.
The local authority approved the plans in June and referred their decision to the Scottish government for scrutiny.
In August, Scottish ministers said the plans did not require a decision at national level and should be dealt with by Highland Council.
Wildland’s judicial review petition passed the permission stage which means the court ruled the company had demonstrated a ‘sufficient interest’ in the subject of the application and the challenge has ‘a real prospect of success’.
The firm said they had concerns over the spaceport’s impact on ‘environmentally vulnerable protected areas’.
They described the decision to grant approval as ‘flawed’ and said the council ‘did not have access to sufficiently detailed or rigorous impact assessments on key aspects of the proposal to approve the application in the way it did.’
In November it was revealed that Wildland’s sister company Wild Ventures Limited has secured a ‘a significant minority investment’ of £1.43 million in the Shetland site on the island of Unst.
The firm said they looked at all the prospective Scottish spaceport sites and they believe that the Shetland location combined with its business model affords the best chance for sustainable success for Scotland and the UK.
Danish businessman Mr Povlsen is Scotland’s largest private landowner.
The 48-year-old, who runs clothing empire Bestseller and has a stake in the fashion retailer Asos, is worth an estimated £4.73billion.
He first visited the Highlands on an angling holiday with his parents in the 1980s and have since bought up huge swathes of the Scottish countryside.
A spokesman for Wildland Limited said: ‘Wildland welcomes the Court’s decision to give permission to proceed with the review of the Highland Council’s grant of planning permission in the months ahead.’
A Highland Council spokeswoman said: ‘We are unable to provide any comment during the judicial review process.’
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