Representation by Great Horkesley Parish Council (Great Horkesley Parish Council)
- Date submitted
- 21 June 2024
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Great Horkesley Parish is a rural village surrounded by countryside and agricultural land and includes part of the Dedham Vale National Landscape (formerly known as AONB). The Parish Council are opposed to the proposed connection of the Five Estuaries windfarm to the East Anglia Connection Node on the Tendring peninsular. We would instead support alternative connection via a coordinated offshore grid, or connecting into Sealink. Connection into the EACN will cause significant harm and is unnecessary. The harm resulting from the related infrastructure and choice of landing point cannot be divorced from the proposal itself and must be assessed as part of it. The location of the EACN has been dictated by the proposed landfall of this proposed windfarm. The location of the EACN is highly unsuitable and constrained. It will cause highly damaging overhead and underground cables to cross the Dedham Vale National Landscape from the North into the EACN, before leaving the EACN heading West across rural villages, including Great Horkesley, and skirting the Dedham Vale National Landscape blighting its setting. This will cause significant harm to the protected National Landscape and its setting with huge swathes of land excavated and scarred for 120m wide trenches for underground cables, whilst the skyscape is blighted by 50m tall pylons which will be seen for miles due to their location atop a plateau with little tree cover. The environmental damage will also include the removal of many trees and hedgerows. NPS-EN5 states that in respect of protected landscape even residual impacts are unacceptable in planning terms. National Grid themselves recognise that very significant damage will occur which cannot be mitigated due to the constraints of the location. Yet there are alternatives to Five Estuaries connecting at the proposed EACN. Both Five Estuaries, and North Falls (the other proposed windfarm envisaged by National Grid as connecting to the EACN) have volunteered to connect offshore to Sealink (under the framework of the Offshore Coordination Support Scheme). The only other proposed infrastructure to land there is the Tarchon interconnector which itself assumes that the windfarms will connect there and its justification and need case are undermined on its own documentation, such that realistically it may not be given approval. The Parish Council is concerned about the very significant harm caused by the EACN and cable path it necessitates across and alongside the National Landscape, and the rural communities including our own. In our Parish we would have underground trenching due to the proximity to the National Landscape, but also significant above ground infrastructure in a sealing end compound and pylons beyond that, which will blight the landscape and skyscape. The trenching will pass metres from homes including many listed buildings and during construction there will be 321 additional vehicles per day, with a 64% increase in HGVs, on the road through our village, which will then proceed along haul roads constructed by National Grid and passing immediately adjacent to listed buildings and through fields over a period of 3 years. Whilst we support green energy, it must be transmitted in the most green way possible. Yet there is a better way, one which avoids such harm, and one which the windfarms themselves support. Accordingly we oppose the proposal to connect at the EACN, aver that the full impact of related infrastructure is properly assessed and taken into account, and implore decision-makers to consider the credible and real alternative connection to Sealink.