Statement - White Cross Planning Application
I have raised the proposed cable route directly with the developers on several occasions and have discussed this with councillors, council officers, the North Devon Biosphere Reserve, ministers and many of the partner organisations that I work with as Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Celtic Sea.
This planning application is only a part of what the developer will need to do to enable this project to go ahead. They will also need permission from the Marine Management Organisation which is running a separate consultation alongside the local planning authority. There are then many further steps before this project becomes a reality.
Planning is certainly not a given and the North Devon Council planning department have likewise been aware of this project, and they too have been in discussion with White Cross for years
This project is 80MW, so only a demonstrator project, and has secured a distribution level grid connection at Yelland. Given its scale it has avoided being a National Infrastructure Project and decisions about its development now lie with the MMO and Local Planning Authority.
I have been expressing my own concerns about the proposed cable route ever since the project came to light 18 months or so ago. The route submitted to planning involves tunnelling through several miles of sand dunes, including a large seaside car park, with holiday chalets in, a golf course, and possible WW2 munitions dump and will take several years to construct.
White Cross have run several public consultation events for residents where local councillors have been invited to attend. Part of this application that was not well advertised and may be a bit of a shock, is the extent that Saunton Sands car park is proposed to be used to facilitate the works. This will be a significant economic concern to the owners and all the businesses that rely on visitors to Saunton.
No one has been able to explain to me who decided this was the most appropriate cable corridor, and both the MMO and Local Authority cannot comment as part of the planning process on whether a better corridor might exist when considering the application.
One of the objectives of the Celtic Sea APPG that I founded upon my election in 2019 has been to coordinate a more strategic approach to this new region for offshore renewables to avoid some of the cable issues seen on the east coast. The APPG preference throughout has been that a single cable corridor to Devon/Cornwall and one to South Wales be established to reduce seafloor damage, as well as minimising disruption caused by cabling onshore as the bigger projects go to sea.
Let me be very clear. I support Floating Offshore Wind (FLOW), the benefits of which I want to see come to North Devon through maintenance jobs, but this is a test site and the amount of energy being proposed in this development I do not believe justifies the significant disruption involved in the current proposal to cable and connect to Yelland.
North Devon is home to several large wind farms including the Fullabrook Wind Farm – which when built was the largest onshore wind farm in the country, at 66MW. Yet this project established Fullabrook CIC, set up with £1M from the then owners of the wind farm, which has now given over £1.58M out in community projects, and receives £100,000 pa from the current owners. I find it bewildering that White Cross have made no offer of community involvement or community gain.
I very strongly believe that the entire Celtic Sea FLOW project should be considered as one, as a national infrastructure project, to enable proper strategic planning, and ensure we do hit our offshore wind targets, and that communities are included in these decisions and recompensed appropriately for hosting infrastructure.
White Cross are advising they will be bidding in AR6, which clearly they will not if they do not have planning. I have grave concerns that councillors and our planning department do not have the knowledge or capacity to adequately assess this proposed development, I have therefore asked the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for additional support.
It is increasingly possible this development will undermine all the support which has been generated along this coastline for FLOW, with hundreds of objections being lodged, and further meetings planned by local parishes.
Ultimately planning is a matter for the Local Planning Authority and this case has been called in to the Planning Committee to consider. There are a considerable number of questions and concerns that White Cross will need to answer and address before any decision should be considered.
Selaine Saxby MP
