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Advice to Edna Greening

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Enquiry

From
Edna Greening
Date advice given
9 October 2017
Enquiry type
Email

I have lived in Necton for over twenty years now and have always enjoyed village life and loved living with open views and rolling countryside. When Dudgeon substation came along as a whole residents had no conception of how much land would be taken up by this huge monstrosity and I, as one that overlooks the present one, have been affected for the past three years with noise and light pollution. With full blackout curtains searchlights, which were left on continually overnight, lit up my bedroom despite various promises and apologies this problem continued. Of course, as the hedgerows are lowered and the winter months approach bringing lacing to the hedgerows we will view more of this substation. Of course we then had our lanes and roads dug up to accommodate the underground electrical cabling which went on and on and on. Vattenfall who also now want to invade our village of course say they are very aware of environmental issues, respect the wishes of residents, etc. etc., have listened and have 'learned from the Dudgeon mistakes' - I DON'T THINK SO! We are now at the pre-application stage and have been told that no views can be taken into consideration until the application has been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate - of course this gives no time for changes. Two very obvious alternative sites have been put before Vattenfall by Necton Substations Action Group as very much more suitable positions which are away from villages. We are not prepared to sit down and be bullied by these people who put profit before people and the environment.

The Vattenfall proposal is much larger than the Dudgeon site which I understand will in total take up 70 acres and be 80ft high. How can anybody in their right mind give the OK for our village, or any other, to be invaded and spoilt forever by these people. I understand these substations have a very limited life so, of course, once all this countryside has been concreted over we are left with large areas of farmland which can then only be used for industrial purposes - GREAT!

Has anyone got the message yet - WE DON'T WANT ANY MORE SUBSTATIONS - WE'VE DONE OUR BIT.

Advice given

As the project has not yet been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate (the Inspectorate), we have no formal powers to intervene on consultees behalf. I note you have contacted the developer directly and we would encourage you to do this to make your concerns heard as the Applicant has a statutory duty to take your views into account. However, if you feel your comments are not being taken into account, I would advise you to write to your local authority and set out why you think the Applicant is failing to conduct its consultation properly. Your comments should be taken into account when the local authority sends the Inspectorate its comments on whether the Applicant has fulfilled its consultation duties. The local authority’s comments on the Applicant’s consultation will be taken into account when the Acceptance Inspector makes their decision whether to accept the application for Examination.

A copy of your correspondence has been placed on our records and will be presented to the Inspector at Acceptance, together with the application documents and local authorities’ comments on the Applicant’s consultation.

After the decision has been made regarding whether to accept the application for Examination all documents used to inform the decision will be published on our website. If the application for development consent is formally accepted you will be able to submit your views in relation to the project which will be considered by the Examining Authority during the Examination. The Inspectorate has published a series of advice notes which explain the Examination process, including information on how to get involved; of particular interest are advice notes 8.1 to 8.5. These are available here: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/legislation-and-advice/advice-notes/.

You may also wish to see our compilation of advice about the Pre-application procedure and community consultation: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/wp-content/ipc/uploads/projects/General/General-Advice-00632-1-170702%20s47%20Community%20Consultation%20FAQ.pdf