Advice to Chris and Helen Monk
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- From
- Chris and Helen Monk
- Date advice given
- 15 May 2019
- Enquiry type
We are writing to express our interest in, and concerns over, this proposal. We live in the centre of Cawston and our house fronts onto the B1145, very close to the traffic. The impact of this scheme, together with the Vattenfall Vanguard scheme and Orsted’s Hornsea 3, will be devastating to our quality of life and enjoyment of our property. In principle we are strongly in favour of schemes such as renewable energy which serve to protect and improve the environment, but we do feel that the philosophy of protecting the wider environment should not rest on destroying some local environments, which is what will happen if this proposal goes ahead in its current form. We do not feel that alternative approaches, and routes avoiding Cawston have been properly assessed. The B1145 and other roads in this area are simply unsuitable for the types and volumes of traffic proposed. The levels of noise and vibration in the centre of the village will be intolerable and there are real road safety concerns. Several of these houses date from the 18th Century, some are subject to Preservation Orders, and there has to be a likelihood of major structural damage. there is a village junior school, buses, school buses collecting senior pupils, and a busy centre with shops, pub and houses close to the narrow road - a constant need for pedestrians to be able to cross the road throughout the day. air quality in the centre of the village would be another concern, as is light pollution this is a twisty B road, unsuitable for HGVs, narrow and very difficult in many places for two vehicles to pass one another safely. in the village there are narrow pavements and several blind junctions, where traffic on the side road has to creep into the main road to see what is coming. The old railway bridge near the village hall is also on a blind bend with no pavement for pedestrians. a double bend between Cawston and Salle is exceptionally tight, you often need to stop and back up to allow a non HGV lorry to get round. We get no sense that factors like these have been considered sufficiently in the proposal. We note that Vattenfall suggest that some mitigation can be achieved by driver training; this is absurd. Surely drivers should be properly trained in any event, and in fact a failure to adhere to high standards would be an exacerbation. We hope that you are able to include these views in your assessments, and look forward to hearing from you. Kind regards Helen & Chris Monk
Advice given
Dear Helen and Chris Monk Thank you for your email in relation to the proposed Norfolk Boreas Wind Farm proposed application. I apologise for the delay in this email reaching you as it would appear that you did not receive a direct response from us at the time. Please note, this application is due to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in mid-June 2019. Upon receipt there will be a 28 day acceptance period and should the application be accepted for examination, there will be an opportunity for interested parties to submit a relevant representation. I would encourage you to monitor the project webpage and sign up to email updates. As the application has not yet been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate, the proposal is currently at pre-application stage of the planning process and therefore until the application is submitted, your first point of contact should be the developer. You may have already done so however I would encourage you to contact Vattenfall Offshore Wind Ltd directly (info@norfolkboreas.co.uk) as it is important that the developer is made aware of your comments at the pre-application stage of the process, to enable them to consider these points before finalising their proposals and submitting the applications to the Planning Inspectorate. If you would like more information about the Planning Act 2008 process, please see “Advice Note Eight: Overview of the nationally significant infrastructure planning process for members of the public and others” which can be found along with other advice notes, here: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/legislation-and-advice/advice-notes/ Kind regards Kay Kay Sully (This advice was also given to – Matthew Attewell)