Campaigners and a Suffolk MP have repeated calls for an offshore grid to be created, describing energy infrastructure as a 'shambles,' after plans for the so-called LionLink scheme were unveiled.
Power firm National Grid has announced its preferred options for routing cables from wind farms, which include reaching land at Southwold and Walberswick and connecting to the grid at a substation at Friston, while there will be a converter station at Saxmundham.
The project will create a first-of-its-kind electricity link between the UK and the Netherlands and will provide power for 1.8 million homes.
READ MORE: Fears onshore cabling could affect Southwold and Walberswick
However, campaigners, including action group Suffolk Energy Action Solutions (SEAS), are concerned about the impact of the plans on communities and the natural environment and have called instead for an offshore grid to be created, with cables reaching land at a brownfield site at Bradwell in Essex.
Meanwhile, Suffolk County Council has expressed concerns about National Grid's 'failure' to co-ordinate the LionLink scheme with a separate Sea Link project which will transport electricity from Suffolk to Kent.
READ MORE: East Suffolk Council calls for 'offshore solutions'
Currently, Sea Link cables are due to reach land at a separate location at Aldeburgh, but the council believes that co-ordinating the schemes together would remove the need to have separate landing points for cables and reduce the impact on the landscape.
"SEAS promotes better offshore solutions and the use of existing brownfield sites.
READ MORE: Aldeburgh news
"SEAS works on behalf of the whole Suffolk heritage coast.
"We are a team of volunteers giving up our time to do this work because we believe that there are genuinely cheaper, better solutions and they would only take two years longer to implement.
"The current energy infrastructure planning is in a shambles. Everyone can agree about that.
"We know from discussions with engineers from other North Sea companies that the better solutions are available and use subsea cables pooling energy at offshore platforms and take that energy in a series of subsea cables directly to where the power is required with landfall at brownfield sites."
READ MORE: Southwold news
Councillor Richard Rout, the county council's deputy leader and cabinet member for environment and finance, called for everything to be done to minimise the harm to local communities and landscapes, as well as for coordination with the Sea Link scheme.
He said: “The high handed and process-driven approach by National Grid Ventures is totally unacceptable.
"They are showing a complete lack of respect for Suffolk and its coastal communities.
“The absence of coordination between the Sea Link and LionLink projects will, if they are consented, result in more than ten miles of some of the most sensitive and important landscapes in the UK being dug up to create more trenches for more cabling.
READ MORE: Suffolk news
“This additional and unnecessary destruction of the Suffolk countryside and natural environment could be wholly avoided, if there was project coordination – something we have been calling for, for years."
Suffolk Coastal MP Therese Coffey said: “I completely oppose National Grid Venture’s proposal to bring LionLink into Southwold or Walberswick with a huge converter station at Saxmundham and continue to make the case to National Grid Electricity System Operator and government ministers that brownfield sites closer to London should be used instead, especially as a majority of the power will then be transported to London and the southeast."
However, Gareth Burden, construction director at National Grid, said: “LionLink has an important role to play in reducing the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels and bringing more clean, green and renewable energy into the UK’s energy system.
"This will not only strengthen the country’s energy security but also lower bills for consumers too.
“Over 2,000 people engaged with our consultation process and each piece of feedback has been reviewed and fed into the development of our plans for the project.
"We will continue to listen to the community and want to find ways to work together as we deliver this vital piece of energy infrastructure as we move towards net zero.”
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