Legislation/policy - why our surveys matter

What do our wildlife survey and the proximity to protected sites actually mean in relation to LionLink and their requirement to comply with environmental regulation? 

Protected Sites

The Minsmere to Walberswick Marshes Site of Special Scientific Interest, and European Site (Special Protection Area (SPA) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC)), which largely overlap each other, are within 100m of the proposed landfall site (Manor Field), and the cabling routes will need to cross them. They are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Habitats Regulations 2017 (as amended), the latter being particularly strong European legislation.

Between the sea and landfall, the cable route would run through vegetated shingle and saline lagoons supporting breeding little terns, and reedbeds supporting breeding bittern and marsh harrier. All these birds are qualifying species for the SPA and are highly sensitive to disturbance. All these species have been the subject of intense and costly conservation planning and interventions for decades, which has led to increases in their UK populations.

To compromise these decades of meticulous work and millions of pounds of investment seems counter-intuitive and needless.

There is a significant likelihood of the landfall and cabling works causing the following:

• Seawater incursion due to weakening of the natural storm ridge allowing sea defences to breach.

• Disturbance to these species through noise, vibration and light. 

• Compromising delicate reedbed water levels due to directional drilling beneath.

We are particularly concerned by the potential for the work to cause seawater incursion. The combined bittern population of Minsmere and Walberswick is known to be the key source population feeding the rest of the UK’s small population. As described in a seminal paper[1], should this SPA be impacted by seawater incursion, it is likely to have catastrophic implications for the UK population as a whole. Applying the precautionary principle, as one must with European Sites, the risk of this occurring would be too great to allow the work to proceed. 

National Infrastructure Projects such as LionLink can sometimes override the above concerns if considered to be of great enough importance. However, there is an important clause in the Habitats Regulations legislation, underpinning the SPA and SAC designations: the first derogation test, which states there must be no other feasible alternative solutions that would cause less or no damage to this or other European sites. A famous precedent for this law was set by the Dibden Bay Inquiry in 2004, which rejected the proposal for a port on the grounds that there were suitable alternatives elsewhere. 

As all three of the other options NGV considered for landfall siting and cable routes also cross or skirt designated wildlife sites, similar issues apply to these options as well, although Walberswick is the only route to directly impact terrestrial European Sites, so is arguably the most sensitive under the first derogation test. Dunwich and Aldeburgh options were dropped in part due to the predicted damage to the marine European Site offshore, yet the same European Site stetches up the coast to Walberswick and Southwold, so would be subject to the same impacts. It is clear that NGV have not assessed any alternative options which do not impact terrestrial protected sites, including an offshore grid approach favoured by the Dutch at their end of LionLink.

NGV seem not to have recognised the need to fully explore the feasible alternatives to the damaging options they have presented to date. They risk this becoming a very protracted and expensive planning process if they do not, with ultimately a high chance of failure, which will be counter-productive for the UK and its net zero energy target. WALL intends to exhaustively push NGV regarding this point.  

DEFRA guidance on the protected European sites can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/habitats-regulations-assessments-protecting-a-european-site

Birds

Our bird survey data will provide evidence both that LionLink risks impacting birds listed as qualifying species of the SPA, thereby triggering the Habitats Regulations, and species specially protected from disturbance under the Wildlife and Countryside Act such as Cetti’s warbler and hobby, which will require onerous avoidance measures should the Walberswick route be chosen. 

Bats

All native species of bat in the UK are protected under the European Habitats Regulations and are a material consideration in the planning process. Bat roosts should not be impacted by development, including indirect disturbance from noise and lighting, and development should avoid their core foraging habitats, such as hedgerows, woodland and marshland known to support important populations. NGV must take full and justified account of the potential impacts of LionLink on these populations in their Environmental Impact Assessment, and we will also be ensuring they include appropriate avoidance and mitigation in their proposals should Walberswick be the selected site. 

Reptiles  

All reptile species are protected from killing and injuring and are a material consideration in the planning process. Again, NGV must take full and justified account of the potential impacts of LionLink on these populations in their Environmental Impact Assessment, and we will also be ensuring they include appropriate avoidance and mitigation in their proposals. 

[1] Gilbert, G., Brown, A.F. & Wooton S.R. (2010). Current dynamics and predicted vulnerability to sea‐level rise of a threatened Bittern Botaurus stellaris population. Ibis 152: 580-589