Members of Tendring District Council (TDC) unanimously voted last night (Tuesday, 12 July) against proposals for a huge pylon project running across the region.
East Anglia Green is a proposal from National Grid to build 180km of high voltage electricity cables to connect new offshore wind farms off the Norfolk coast to energy infrastructure in Tilbury, south Essex – with only a small section, through an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, being buried underground. In addition the project would see a new sub-station built in rural Tendring.
Full council last night backed a motion which, in line with the authority’s declared Climate Emergency, welcomed the development of renewal energy sources, but expressed deep concern about the consultation and a lack of consideration of any other routes.
Chief among the alternatives discussed by the council was a proposal to route the electricity cables under the sea around the coast and up river estuaries – removing the biodiversity and visual impacts on land, improving maintenance access, and future-proofing the offshore grid for further wind farm connections.
The emergency motion was proposed by TDC Leader Neil Stock OBE and Deputy Leader Carlo Guglielmi, and unanimously backed by councillors across the chamber.
Cllr Stock said: “Successive governments have failed to invest in our energy infrastructure; and pylons are such an out-dated form of supplying electricity – this is 100-year-old technology.
“This is the wrong thing in the wrong place, and the consultation has frankly been meaningless, with only one option on the table – and calling it green undermines public support for green energy which is in itself dangerous.
“I am pleased this motion achieved cross-party, unanimous support, with councillors from across the chamber highlighting impacts such as the carbon footprint of pylons, vehicle movements to create this, and the loss of a vast amount of the finest arable land.”
TDC submitted a formal response to the consultation, with the reply discussed at its Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee on 31 May.
