Representation by Steve Stocks
- Date submitted
- 26 January 2020
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Tourism in East Suffolk is worth some £600 million per year, and a third of that it is generated in and around the Suffolk Coasts & Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, employing some 4,500 people. This is part only, of course, of a chain of protected natural areas along most of the Suffolk coast. It can be no accident that the planned site for the Friston substations for EA1N and EA2 lie less than one kilometre outside this designated AONB. Disregarding the damage to the rich biodiversity of our natural environment which, of course, it is difficult to value in financial terms, it is undoubtedly true that the construction and presence of the substations would cause a reduction in visitors to the area. A recent survey established that they would be put off by the loss of the natural beauty, peace and quiet for which some 84% of visitors come to the area. Their greatest fear was a growth in traffic congestion. The natural environment would be adversely affected by a quite alien industrial landscape, whilst the inevitable disruption caused by worker and construction traffic over an extended period would discourage our visitors from returning. They would vote with their feet, and it would be you who had driven them away. Furthermore, their adverse social media comments would encourage others to stay away too. Such a downturn has been conservatively estimated between £24 and £40 million per year, with the consequent loss of jobs with few alternative prospects. Your own estimates admit that there would be little or no long-term work generated by the proposed developments. We can only applaud your efforts to improve the environment through the production of fossil-free energy offshore on a vast scale, but positive advances in one area must not be jeopardised by piecemeal, inappropriate industrialisation onshore in a largely unspoiled area. "I don't understand why when we destroy something created by Man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by Nature we call it progress." (Ed Begley Jr, environmentalist)