Representation by Oulton Parish Council (Oulton Parish Council)
- Date submitted
- 7 November 2022
- Submitted by
- Parish councils
Relevant Representation from Oulton Parish Council? Oulton parish is currently impacted by Orsted’s now consented Hornsea Project Three Main Construction Compound, which will be in situ for many years – over the whole of the onshore cable trench construction period. In addition, Vattenfall has sited its Central Works Area (Cable Logistics Area) and another large construction compound for the Norfolk Vanguard and Boreas projects in and adjacent to the parish, along with a section of cable route which runs alongside the parish to the east. The construction traffic for all these projects will share, as their access route, the southern end of Oulton Street for many years, representing severe cumulative adverse impacts for Oulton. ? The Sheringham & Dudgeon Extension Project’s proposed cable trench is routed through the northern, western and southern sections of the parish of Oulton, before crossing Vattenfall's Vanguard/Boreas cable route. A crossover of cable routes on this scale represents a significant additional impact of this proposal. The combined negative impacts of all these proposals on Oulton parish – north, south, east and west – is intolerable. In addition, there is the added cumulative impact of a recently consented large solar farm in this parish, which is about to be constructed on the same land as the proposed southern part of the SEP/DEP cable route. It is now known that Vattenfall’s Norfolk Vanguard & Boreas will be constructed in three phases, giving rise to the potential for the simultaneous cumulative impacts of the construction of Vanguard/Boreas and SEP/DEP. Oulton Parish Council would therefore like to register its grave concerns about:? a) HGV traffic impacts (noise, vibration, emissions) over many years, b) disruption caused by road closures and diversions, c) environmental impacts (loss of trees & hedgerows, permanent damage to field drainage d) systems, destruction of the microbiology of excavated top-soils stored in heaps) e) and cumulative impacts with Hornsea 3, Vanguard/Boreas and the solar farm project. The Council also needs to register its concerns about the following over-arching issues about the SEP/DEP application: 1.lack of proper consideration by the Applicant of an alternative, more appropriate, grid connection point (e.g. at Walpole); 2.need for the ExA to require the attendance of National Grid at the Hearings, to be questioned on their actions by the ExA, in public, during the examination process; 3.recognition, in relation to the work of the OTNR, that SEP/DEP is not an “in-flight” project; 4.the onshore in-combination, cumulative impacts of SEP/DEP’s landfall, substation and cable corridor construction, when considered alongside the already consented Hornsea Three, Vanguard and Boreas projects; 5.that the SEP/DEP application must include – as a necessary cumulative impact – the proposed East Anglia Green pylon upgrade, upon the consenting of which it depends for the export of the electricity it will produce; 6.the cumulative impact of the possible future construction of large battery storage facilities to improve the economic viability of the proposal, as has happened with the Hornsea Three project.