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Meeting with Ecotricity

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Enquiry

Meeting with
Ecotricity
Date of meeting
31 August 2022
Enquiry type
Meeting

Response to questions raised during the Project Update Meeting on 31 August 2022

Advice given

Following on from our meeting on Heckington Fen Solar on 31st August, I can confirm that we don’t have any other general policy advice to give you on the approach you should take in your discussions with Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) about the area of coverage of trial trenching, but we would advise that your team continue liaising with LCC’s archaeologist on this matter over the difficulties you are having over access to land for trenching in the proposed cable route red line boundary areas pre submission and any possible solutions. The national policy position on archaeological investigations is set out in the overarching National Policy Statement (NPS) for Energy (EN-1) and the draft NPS for Renewable Energy Infrastructure (EN-3). These do not specify any percentage area requirements for archaeological excavation such as for trial trenching. The need to meet a certain level of coverage of trial trenching is not in itself something that would necessarily make the ES inadequate or would be an acceptance issue. Although we do not encourage survey data to be submitted after acceptance, the possibility of this is not ruled out and trial trenching could be carried out in the pre examination period for those areas where information may be missing at submission, should this be considered necessary. For acceptance we would be looking at the methodology used to justify the ES conclusions and mitigation if appropriate. Where there is missing trial trench data a ‘worst case scenario’ should be assumed and any appropriate mitigation agreed with LCC, if possible. With respect to your other enquiry about whether the responses to the PEIR for Mallard Pass Solar would be published by the Applicant and/or the local authority/stakeholders, there is no requirement for these responses to be published. I hope that this is of help, but don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions on any of the above.