Advice to Luigi Beltrandi
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- From
- Luigi Beltrandi
- Date advice given
- 17 July 2018
- Enquiry type
Dear Sir Re: Scottish Power Substations for East Anglia2 and East Anglia1 North Substations We live in Friston Suffolk. We attended a presentation by Scottish Power on 24th May 2018 which outlined their proposals for a revised land connection from that previously approved by the Planning Inspectorate at Bawdsey. This is currently under construction connecting the wind farm East Anglia 1 south to the national grid at Branford. The new proposed location for the land fall for the cables from East Anglia 2 and East Anglia 1 north is at Sizewell. The original connection for the three wind farms, EA2, EA1 north and south was approved by the inspectorate with land fall at Bawdsey extending via underground cables to Branford this has been well thought and considered to avoid villages and habitation but will no longer have provision for the cabling of EA2 and EA1 north. We do not understand why this approved cabling solution has required revising. We are being told by Scottish Power that the reason for the change of location has been dictated by National Grid. The proposals currently being entertained by Scottish Power will involve three substations connecting to your power lines on the northern edge of Friston within sight of the medieval village church. These substations will require an operational area of 30 acres plus areas for access they will have structures up 18 metres in height equivalent to a six-storey building. What is being proposed is a major piece of national infrastructure not just three simple substations as Scottish Power maintain. All this is proposed to be constructed in agricultural land and possibly in ancient woodland adjacent to a village which is currently surrounded by farmland with the highest structure being the listed church tower and windmill. We are extremely concerned at the scale and magnitude of this proposal and the way the site selection process has been carried out. The combined array of EA2 and EA1 north will produce 1600 MW and we are sure that you have an understanding of the scale of infrastructure needed to connect this to the grid, not something that should be dumped on the edge of village in the heart of rural Suffolk. We received today a reply from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in response to an e mail from us which is truly unhelpful. It suggest that the Government has no overall coordinated strategy for how electrical energy is to be generated and distributed across the nation but that it simply a free for all for the private sector to decide, without regard to its impact on local communities and countryside. These are projects that will affect the nature of villages and rural landscape in perpetuity consequently their cumulative impact should to be fully understood and scrutinised against a national masterplan. We strongly support the role of wind energy in reducing the carbon foot print of the nation, however there appears to be a serious lack of coordination in how it is being delivered and distributed with Suffolk its countryside and residents being asked to bear a truly unreasonable burden. We also would like to draw your attention to the recent article by Fiona Cairns, director of the Suffolk Preservation Society in the East Anglian Daily Times on Saturday 9th June 2018 which much more eloquently outlines the principle issues involved. Yours faithfully Luigi Beltrandi
Advice given
Please see attached.