Advice to Tony Smedley
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- From
- Tony Smedley
- Date advice given
- 9 November 2017
- Enquiry type
I would like to add my name to what I believe is a growing list of people concerned with the potential adverse effects on the environment of Norfolk by the increasing amount of onshore infrastructure inflicted on the County for offshore windfarms. My personal concern being Vattenfalls Norfolk Vanguard and Norfolk Boreas offshore windfarms and the location of the onshore substation at Necton. I believe that Vattenfall, et al are riding roughshod over the Norfolk populace by hiding behind an outdated mandate used by the National Grid. This is resulting in, among other things, the ludicrous cable routing and crossing issues ensuing between Vattenfall and Dong near Salle. Plus the building of huge onshore substations in totally inappropriate locations. In addition I am very concerned that companies such as Vattenfall are being economical with the truth when explaining/indoctrinating local people on their consultations. Despite what is said, in usually patronising terms, local people have no real say in determining the final outcome of such consultations. Companies such as Vattenfall do them purely as a paper exercise because they are required to consult, without actually heeding too much to local opinion. To them we are a nuisance to be brushed aside. They are not doing these projects to be altruistic and save the world. They do them to make money. And by the way, Vattenfall, which is owned by the Swedish Government, also build coal fired power stations. Are they being selective in which parts of the world they want to save? Or is it all down to money?
Advice given
Thank you for your email. As the projects have not yet been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate (the Inspectorate), we have no formal powers to intervene on consultees behalf. I would therefore encourage you to contact the developer directly 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 applications 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 applications for Examination all documents used to inform the decisions will be published on our website. If the applications for development consent are formally accepted you will be able to submit your views in relation to the projects which will be considered by the Examining Authority during the Examinations. 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 at: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/legislation-and-advice/advice-notes
We have also published a Frequently Asked Questions document regarding Pre-application consultation and this can be viewed on our website here: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/wp-content/ipc/uploads/projects/General/General-Advice-00632-1-170702%20s47%20Community%20Consultation%20FAQ.pdf.