Decision on offshore wind farms now expected in June

Decisions on whether two large wind farm projects off the north Norfolk coast will go ahead have been delayed until June.
 

The proposal for Norfolk Vanguard is a 1.8 GW capacity project. Image: Vattenfall

 
The delay was announced on 6 February by the then Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Andrea Leadsom, who has since been sacked by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a cabinet reshuffle.
 
The onshore cable trenches for the Ørsted Hornsea Project Three and Vattenfall’s Norfolk Vanguard offshore wind farms are due to cross just north of Reepham.
 
The statutory decision deadline for the Hornsea Project Three offshore wind farm had earlier been re-set in October 2019. However, following a request from Ørsted in mid-December for an extension to provide additional information, the former Secretary of State decided to re-set the decision deadline for a second time to 1 June 2020.
 
The deadline for the decision on the Norfolk Vanguard offshore wind farm was originally 10 December 2019. Mrs Leadsom also decided to set a new deadline of 1 June for deciding this application to allow further information to be provided.
 
Affected parish councils and Norfolk MPs, including Broadland’s Jerome Mayhew, are reported to be pushing for the installation of an offshore ring main, which would avoid the need for onshore cables running across the Norfolk countryside to connect to inland National Grid substations.
 
See our earlier stories:

 

Related stories: