Representation by Anthony Sims
- Date submitted
- 3 June 2024
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I am a long-term resident local to the area, familiar with the riverside environment and a regular user of Crossness Nature Reserve. A significant impact of this project, should it go ahead, is the loss of riverside grazing marsh, a resource that’s becoming increasingly rare in the Thames estuary. This marshland supports rare flora and in consequence, significant and rare insect, bird and mammal life. A secondary impact will of course be that of the construction noise, disturbance and traffic on the neighbouring reserve itself. The land offered to the reserve as mitigation does not appear to be grazing marsh. Nor is it clear what legal conditions will apply. It’s worth noting by comparison that Thames Water have guaranteed the land and management of Crossness Nature Reserve through to 2093. Cory have provided projected construction one-off and annual carbon capture figures from CCS but do not provide one-off and ongoing carbon release figures for loss of habitat. This makes an overall judgement on the carbon calculation and other merits of the project quite difficult. It’s worth setting the projected annual capture of 1.6 million tCO2e, against UK overall emissions of 384 million tCO2e (2023). Transport and storage issues relating to captured CO2 do not seem to have been fully detailed in the submission. It’s worth noting that carbon capture has the potential for dangerous inadvertent release of stored or transported gas, this is not uncommon in the energy industries and such incidents have been documented in the chemical engineering sector.