The Planning Inspectorate announced this week that they have accepted an application for a Development Consent Order (DCO) to connect two planned wind farms in the Irish Sea to the national grid at the Penwortham Substation.
The proposed development involves undersea cables landing near Blackpool Airport and running underground to two substations between Kirkham and Newton, before continuing underground and beneath the River Ribble to Penwortham.
Fylde Council made representations to the Planning Inspectorate expressing concern that the pre-application consultation was inadequate as it did not appear to include notification of all interested parties and as the level of detail available at the consultation stage was not sufficiently detailed to allow affected communities and other key stakeholders to make meaningful comments.
Leader of Fylde Council, Councillor Karen Buckley, said: “Our submission to the Planning Inspectorate was a clear request to decline to accept the application to progress to the next stage. Instead, we asked that the proposals be refined and further consultations take place with the local community, statutory consultees and stakeholders.
This would have allowed the applicants to further consider appropriate alternative routing for the proposed connections to the national grid which would have a lesser environmental impact, be less costly to implement and even provide an opportunity for more economic growth, such as the nearby site at Hillside Technology Enterprise Zone which is close to a grid connection at Stanah. The fact that this opportunity has been missed demonstrates a blinkered approach that ignores the local geography of Fylde and risks the implementation of a scheme that threatens homes and local livelihoods that support our community. ”
Deputy Leader of Fylde Council and Chair of the Planning Committee Councillor Richard Redcliffe added: “We are extremely disappointed that the Planning Inspectorate has decided to accept the application despite the view of the local council that the consultation exercise carried out prior to the submission of the application was flawed. The report outlining the reasons for the application being accepted has not yet been published and we intend to carefully review the Planning Inspectorate’s reasoning for accepting the application. Fylde Council will continue to make representations to the proposal at the next stages of the procedure and would encourage residents who may be directly or indirectly impacted by the development to register with the Inspectorate so that they remain informed of the process and to make their views known to the Inspectorate.”
Whilst Fylde Council is committed to providing for renewable energy and the infrastructure that supports it, this must be balanced against the potential impacts on the environment and local communities. Fylde Council objected to the proposed connection for a number of reasons including the potential impact of the project on agricultural land, the visual impact of the extremely large substations that would be required and the widespread disturbance that would be created during the construction phase.
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