Formal response to the 3rd Statutory Consultation to a proposed application by National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) for a Development Consent Order (DCO) for the proposed Norwich to Tilbury project
The Lawford Parish Council response to the above consultation was emailed to: Catrin.Owen [at] nationalgrid.com and contact [at] n-t.nationalgrid.com on 22nd July 2024 by Cllr Carlo Guglielmi and reads as follows:
Dear Catrin Owen
I write in my capacity of County, District, and Parish Councillor to object in the strongest possible terms to this 3rd Statutory Consultation for the above proposal. Please also treat this submission as the formal response from Lawford Parish Council. As with my previous submissions and having attended two further public meetings and two online briefings for elected members, my view and Lawford Parish Council’s view on the project have not changed, nor have those from the many residents of Ardleigh, Little Bromley and Lawford who will be affected and directly impacted by this proposal.
The amendments that have been made to this revised version since the previous consultations, are the slight relocation of some of the pylons on the route away from Tendring in the south of the County, and the undergrounding of cables to the substation in Lawford, the East Anglian Connection Node (EACN); this does not address any of the impacts and concerns listed below to residents in Ardleigh, Little Bromley and Lawford.
I will repeat what I had stated previously that the damage you will do to the locality, environment, and many people’s lives will take many generations to recover, especially when considering the unacceptable carbon output by the millions of tons of concrete needed to shore up the pylons throughout the countryside.
The Offshore Coordination Support Scheme (OCSS) is awaiting the outcome of an initial high-level study into the feasibility of coordinated options for offshore transmission infrastructure and I believe that it is essential to receive and consider these findings before any further consideration is given to any current onshore proposals, especially when two other major concurrent applications , North Falls and Five Estuaries have already agreed in principle that they will connect to the Offshore option.
You have yet again completely dismissed the underwater options as being too expensive and unviable, and nobody from NG has explained to me, to any of my colleagues, or any of my residents how the Morocco xlinks project https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ which seeks to transmit power through a massive 3,800km HVDC sub-sea cables be viable?
This is 21 times longer than what you are proposing, but yet it is deemed possible.
Proper consideration to routing the powerlines around the coast or on the seabed will completely remove opposition, the permanent negative impacts on communities, the damage to the environment and the landscape, and lengthy and very costly legal disputes; this option will remove the complexities and expenses of land negotiations as well as access arrangements.
You have not fully considered the long-term sustainability of pylons and their ability to sustain extreme weather events that we have experienced and will continue to do so more and more often; you have not fully considered the loss of transported energy via the pylons against the much-reduced energy loss if transported through underwater, or underground cables.
Your considerations so far have been utterly dismissive of these options because of the cost, and you have never produced any meaningful alternatives other than pylons.
I reiterate the fact that, although everyone is committed and supportive of Green Energy, there is not one single local County, District, Parish, or Town Council that is supportive of what you are trying to force through on the pretence of Green Energy transportation; in fact all of us have been very clear and quite persistent in pointing out that as far as you are concerned, the only option you offer is 50m tall pylons, albeit you will be undergrounding small sections through sensitive zones such as AONBs.
As the Chairman of the Tendring District Council’s Planning Policy and local Plan Committee I am very proud of the fact that the Council has a range of Policies to protect the rich Historic Environment, the extensive Landscape Character very unique to our District, and the Environment at large. None of these policies have been considered, mentioned, referenced, or even looked at; the proposed East Anglia Connection Node (EACN) will ride roughshod not only through our policies, but will also cause irreparable and lasting damage to our beautiful countryside, its character, and the lives of those who live along the proposed route.
The village of Little Bentley will not only have a new and permanent service access road with all the consequential problems, but it will also have to endure an inappropriate widening of Bentley Road, which will change its rural feel and character for ever.
One of the points I made in my earlier submission to you was valid then and still very valid now: how will you possibly compensate Farmers and Landowners for the land that you will take up to deliver this scheme? They will be forced to sterilise up to 10% of their land, and not only they will lose the income from lost crops in perpetuity, but what you are offering will never compensate their loss.
Another relevant point I made last year, and possibly even more so now as the scheme is progressing, is the consideration of the effects of your proposals to many of residents’ mental health well-being. This has been hanging over them for a long time, and much more now going forward.
Besides all this, there is still a great deal of uncertainty within the farming community about how the proposals will affect their livelihoods. They are extremely concerned around the legacy impacts on soil quality in terms of disturbance from energy being transported through the cables and implications for land drainage as well as water extracted from historic wells; you have provided very little data on this particular apprehension.
Although you are proposing to underground cables in the Dedham Vale AONB, one of most outstanding area of natural beauty in the entire country, the harm caused by your proposal in a visual sense and the recovery span for those disrupted natural habitats will take a very long time to recover, if at all, and there are not enough justifications.
In my previous submission I expressed major concern on the impact to our Highway assets and network through the construction traffic and the lifespan of the project; the damage to these will be unmeasurable especially when every Highways authority in the land can ill afford to maintain what they need to, without the added damage that your proposal will cause to its networks.
Your proposal by itself will bring about substantial impacts, but when considered in conjunction with North Falls, Five Estuaries and potentially the Tarchon interconnector, the combined effects will be overwhelming and utterly unacceptable to our local communities.
You have not addressed the cumulative impacts of these developments, especially with regards to the landscape, transportation, land issues, and the permanent harm to our communities by environmental and blight visuals; there will undoubtedly be years of uncoordinated damaging disturbance as well as piecemeal landscaping schemes that will change the district for ever.
The several issues that I have listed, are all material consideration that a Planning Inspector must take into account during the DCO examination; these are concerns that have been voiced by thousands and thousands of people across Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, so we cannot all be wrong.
In closing I will make my final and obvious comment that all these issues can be addressed and resolved through proper consideration and development of an offshore solution, and once again I would strongly urge you to do the right thing, abandon these unsustainable and unacceptable plans and change your plans to an underwater proposal that everyone will support.
Yours sincerely Cllr Giancarlo Guglielmi
Member for the Lawford, Manningtree, and Mistley Ward
Chairman of the Tendring DC’s Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee
Essex CC Member for Tendring Rural West
Chairman of the ECC’s Development & Regulation Committee
Vice Chairman of the ECC’s People and Family Committee