Representation by Norfolk Parishes Movement for an Offshore Transmission Network (Norfolk Parishes Movement for an Offshore Transmission Network)
- Date submitted
- 12 November 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
The Norfolk Parishes Movement (NPM) for an OTN wishes to be registered as an Interested Party in the PINS Examination of Equinor’s SEP/DEP application. The Norfolk Parishes Movement is a single-issue grouping of 95 Parish and Town Councils throughout Norfolk, which has come together over the past 4 years to promote the rapid evolution of an offshore transmission network for offshore wind. Equinor’s proposal represents the third 60 km cable corridor, with landfall and inland substation, proposing to cut through the Norfolk countryside. Many parishes in our group are situated directly on or adjacent to the cable corridor for SEP/DEP and are therefore directly impacted by its construction. Many more are situated on the path of the cable corridors for the Hornsea Three and Norfolk Vanguard/Boreas projects. Some communities are directly affected by TWO of these cable routes; every Parish is adversely affected by the cumulative impacts of ALL THREE, including the onshore substations. The NPM wishes to raise concerns about 1. lack of proper consideration by the Applicant of an alternative, more appropriate, grid connection point; 2. need for the ExA to require the attendance of National Grid at the Hearings, to be interrogated 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 should include – as a necessary cumulative impact – the proposed East Anglia Green project, upon the consenting of which it depends; 6. the cumulative impact of the possible future construction of large battery storage facilities to improve the economic viability of the project, as has happened with the Hornsea Three project.