Representation by Dr Rachel Herron
- Date submitted
- 24 January 2020
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
We wish to object to the onshore works aspect of this Planning Application, specifically the proposed landfall at the holiday village of Thorpeness that has extremely fragile cliffs and the 11 km route for the cabling to the proposed substation site at Friston. This will destroy an area of open countryside and Outstanding Natural Beauty. The impact on the environment, wildlife and tourism locally will be significant and of long duration. The application should rather consider using a brownfield site for the land-based infrastructure and possible sites do exist. Alternatively, it should make landfall in the Bawdsey area further down the coast where the trench has already been dug to link power from existing windfarms to a substation. We attended several consultations on this project in the past and were told by a representative of Scottish Power Renewables that landfall could not be made at Bawdsey because of the cost that would be passed onto the consumer. The Government must be involved in this project to ensure short sighted profit motives of multiple independent companies do not take precedence over protection of the East Suffolk heritage coast and ANOB. We are gravely concerned that multiple applications by different organisations, we believe 7 in total, are being and will be made for Planning Consent in this part of Suffolk piecemeal when it is vital they are considered together and co-ordinated in a joined up way. For example, proposals have been made for an offshore ring main that would have just one landfall site, ideally one that already exists, which would save the disruption, destruction and blight of the multiple projects if enacted independently.