Representation by Martin Steadman
- Date submitted
- 6 January 2020
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I wholly support the representations being made by both Fristin PC and SASES. I moved to Friston with my wife in September 2015. It was to be our final move as we wanted to retire to this part of rural Suffolk for its solitude, peacefulness and quiet nature. We have spent several hundred thousand pounds refurbishing our home, which incidentally borders the development area. I am most concerned about visual impact and noise intrusion in our daily life. We are keen walkers having two dogs and use foothpath 6 on an almost daily basis. This development will mean that we have to use our car every day to seek other walking areas. I believe that SPR are trying to force upon us a design of sub-station that could be very much better. The maximum height of the design currently proposed is 18m. I am aware that there are designs which are only 8m high. Why couldn’t this be proposed for Friston? As regards noise, I cannot see why we should have to accept a design which forces us to accept any increase in noise either within our homes or externally. This should be proven by measurement and not just by calculation. There is the issue of flooding to be considered and I don’t believe that SPR have fully addressed this in their submission. We are already subjected to regular flooding in Friston. I appreciate that drainage systems have been proposed but the engineering is yet to be done. Also, have SPR taken in to account the removal of the land drainage? I am concerned about the cumulative impact of this project when taken with that of the Sizewell C proposal, the Nautilus and Eurolink interconnector projects and the expansion of existing windfarms. Will the Inspectorate take all of these into consideration when looking at transport impact? Needless to say, all of this is weighing heavily on the people of our village, many of whom are ageing and vulnerable. We have all lost equity in our homes which are mostly unsaleable at the moment. These are uncertain times for all of us and there is an issue regarding mental health which SPR will not have considered!