Representation by Cllr Matthew Winnington
- Date submitted
- 19 February 2020
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I am a Portsmouth City Councillor for Eastney and Craneswater ward and as such represent the area when the interconnector cable is planned to come ashore and begin its on land route. I oppose the application for the Aquind Interconnector. I oppose strongly it coming ashore at all in Portsmouth and having any route through the city. In Eastney it will have a particularly devastating effect on resident's amenity as it will entail the digging up of the main access roads, Fort Cumberland Road and Henderson Road, to the eastern part of Eastney (and partially block that area of Portsmouth off completely at one point). Those roads being dug up for a decent length will also disrupt the only bus route that connects to that part of the city and the Hayling Ferry and National Cycle Route 2. Further on in Eastney it will also cross protected green space across Bransbury Park either needing to dig up a shared walking and cycle path and providing a temporary route through the park or digging up the protected green space itself. The place where the cable is going to come ashore is a car park that is a vital place for people to park for access to the beach next to the Fraser Range site and also Fort Cumberland Open Space (the latter is a SSSI). In the documents this council owned car-park is going to have intermittent work going on in it (and presumable the part of it work will be going on in will be inaccessible for the entire time) for 66 weeks which will mean it will not be able to be used at capacity for this entire time which will put further parking pressure on local streets, and thereby disproportionately affecting local residents, that will be further exacerbated when the road it is off is dug up. It is also proposed that there will be two structures on the car-park left in perpetuity after the end of construction which will permanently reduce the car park capacity (which is impossible to expand in any direction due to the road and on all other sides is surrounded by the SSSI). It is also very possible that the interconnector could be built at the same time as a major housing development next door at Fraser Range which will exacerbate the pressure on amenity for local residents even more. On a wider note, I consider the landing of the Aquind Interconnector in Portsmouth utterly perverse. It is nowhere near the closest part of the UK to where it leaves France so that in itself makes no sense, its route is through the most densely populated city in the UK and seems intent on maximum disruption especially in Eastney but also in other parts of Portsmouth and beyond on its way to the Converter Station at Lovedean and finally it is coming to land on an island where you then have to tunnel under the sea again (at the far north west of Langstone Harbour) to actually get to the mainland! To say that this application is seriously flawed would be a massive understatement and I hope that it will be refused as it caused maximum disruption to the people of Portsmouth & South East Hampshire for what appears to be absolutely no benefit to our communities at all and indeed to their detriment.