Representation by Brooks Leney (Brooks Leney)
- Date submitted
- 20 June 2024
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Brooks Leney act on behalf of a number of farmers and landowners who are affected by the proposed project, whether that be as a result of the potential cables or substation. On behalf of our various clients, we have engaged with Five Estuaries since initial communication was made concerning non-intrusive surveys, however, there has been a direct lack of engagement from Five Estuaries as a business, with our point of contact being its Agent. On only a few occasions has an engineer attended a meeting and to this day, and despite requesting for further engagement, we have only met an engineer once to discuss the proposed substation, which will have a detrimental impact on my client, their farming business and their residential property. As to the impact of the scheme, it goes without saying that this will have a detrimental impact on all farming businesses. The value and importance of the soil to a farming business is not considered fully. There are also concerns about the water supply in Little Bromley, where all water is supplied via wells and springs. Concerns have also been raised with the screening and visual mitigation proposals for the substation sites, which could take up to 30+ years to provide even partly satisfactory screening. We have engaged with Five Estuaries Agent, in drafting Heads of Terms for a voluntary agreement. Despite months of negotiations, it appears we are at a 'dead end' with negotiations for the following reasons; 1. Temporary Access - Five Estuaries are not paying for temporary access routes across our clients land. This is not something we have come across before and we strongly believe clients should be paid, as they are with compounds, for access routes to and from compounds and routes around features. 2. Sterilisation of Land between two projects - The current proposal is that Five Estuaries and North Falls will lay its respective cables subject to a 20m easement each. However, as our clients are potentially subject to two separate schemes, there is a chance there will be areas of land sitting between the two sets of cables which do not fall within the Easement area. This area could be as narrow as a few meters, up to a maximum of 60 meters. Our argument is that the ‘no man’s land’ between the two respective windfarm easements, which will be permanently sterilised for any future change of use opportunity, should also e subject to an easement payment as well, thereby incentivising the wind farm companies to lay the cables as close to each other as possible. This has been rejected thus far. 3. Incentive Payment Deadline - Our clients were only provided 12 weeks to review the substantial Heads of Terms before the 'incentive payment' is withdrawn. Given the document was issued in April, being a busy time of the year for farmers, the majority of our clients did not have an opportunity to review these until recently. Notwithstanding this, the Heads of Terms are still being negotiated, despite being 8 business days from the incentive payment deadline. We have therefore requested an extension, to allow our clients to properly consider the final document (once it is in final draft) before the deadline. This has been rejected thus far. 4. Substation Site - there is grave concerns about the layout of the substations and how the current proposal will see a substantial amount of our clients land taken due to the irregular position of both Five Estuaries and North Falls substations. We have asked for the positioning to be reconsidered, thus safeguarding prime agricultural land. However, it appears our requests have not been consider as the planning application shows no collaboration with North Falls and having the substations more closely aligned.