Suffolk County Council has made clear its objection to the Sea Link project, as the Planning Inspectorate begins official proceedings on the scheme’s application for development consent.
The first Open Floor Hearing, saw the beginning of the Examination phase which began on Wednesday 5 November at Snape Maltings. This is an opportunity for people present their views in person to the Examination panel.
The county council maintains that development consent should not be granted, and it continues to object to the Sea Link proposals.
Councillor Richard Rout presented a summary of the council’s concerns, the reasons for its objection are:
- Inadequate road access arrangements
- Poor-quality design of the converter station and its integration with the surrounding landscape
- Cumulative impacts of the scheme, its relationship and timing with other projects
- Disproportionate proposals for a new bridge
- Impacts of the scheme on the Suffolk and Essex Coast and Heaths National Landscape
Councillor Richard Rout, Suffolk County Council’s Cabinet Member for Devolution, Local Government Reorganisation and NSIPs, said:
“Today was the first of a number of representations that the county council will make during the Examination process – our position is that we still have substantive concerns, and object to Sea Link.
“Despite our best efforts, engagement on this project with National Grid has been both difficult and disappointing. As a result, many issues are not properly addressed or resolved.
“We have repeatedly raised a variety of concerns, from significant local impacts such as those on the Grade II listed Hurts Hall and Grade II St John the Baptist Church, to much wider fundamental issues about the timing of this project alongside other nationally significant infrastructure projects in our county.
“The concerns of the county council and of the communities that we represent, have been too readily dismissed. This has been a serious disappointment for officers and councillors alike, especially after effective engagement with National Grid on other projects.
“Now we have the opportunity to present our detailed concerns and mitigations, directly to the Planning Inspectorate, and will do so for the good of Suffolk and its residents.”
The Examination stage is expected to take up to six months.
Councillors Rout's speech can be read in full below:
My name is Councillor Richard Rout and I am Cabinet Member for Devolution, Local Government Reform and Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects at Suffolk County Council.
I'd like to thank you for providing this opportunity for me to address you in person about the SEA link project.
Before setting out some key issues I would like to take the opportunity to reflect on the development of this project, and the Council’s engagement with it.
I think it would be fair to say, that from my point of view, the process has not been satisfactory, despite the fact that the Council is engaging with National Grid Electricity Transmission on two other projects, Bramford to Twinstead, and Norwich to Tilbury.
As I said at our Cabinet meeting on 13 May 2025 to consider the Council’s Relevant Representations, the response to engagement from key members of National Grid’s SEA Link project team has too often been dismissive and high-handed.
This unhelpful and, at times, intransigent, approach, both in relation to the concerns of the Council and of the communities that it represents, has been a serious disappointment for officers and councillors alike, especially after effective engagement with Grid on other projects.
Following the Cabinet meeting there was an in-person meeting between the Council Leader and a National Grid Board Director, and some progress has been made, however, substantive concerns remain.
Overall, engagement on this project has been both difficult and disappointing, as a result many issues are not properly addressed or resolved, that I believe could have been, if the applicant had taken a more constructive approach.
So, while the full and comprehensive details of the Council’s concerns are set out elsewhere, I will take this opportunity to highlight a selection of the key issues:
- Access arrangements for the converter station site remain unsatisfactory
- The ability of the Benhall Road bridge, over the railway, to support delivery of the project remains at best questionable and unresolved
- Likewise, the use of a permanent bridge over the River Fromus to allow access to the site for construction
- Operation of the converter station is wholly disproportionate, and unnecessarily damaging to the environment
- Landscape, and heritage assets, notably the Grade II Listed Hurts Hall and Grade II* Listed St John the Baptist Church in Saxmundham.
Both the harm of the proposed access arrangements, and the engineering viability of those arrangements, mean that Suffolk County Council maintains its position that an alternative access route which integrates with the consented Sizewell Link Road would be a significantly more robust alternative both for this project, and any future projects, than what is being proposed by the applicant.
The design of the converter station and its integration with the surrounding landscape, as currently presented, lacks ambition, respect, or care, for the local environment and communities.
Initial consultation on the design of the converter hall offered a range of innovative possibilities, which were not subsequently progressed in the submitted application.
If the innovative design on offer at consultation was not offered without any realistic assessment of how it could be delivered in practice, I suggest this implies an inappropriately casual approach on the part of the applicant.
This impression is only reinforced by the fact that the applicant failed to publish the feedback of the Design Review Panel, so as to demonstrate transparency of process or to contribute to building public confidence in the project.
In terms of working hours, the council believes seven days a week and on Public Holidays is unacceptable due to the lack of respite for local residents from the impacts associated with construction activities, including disruption to local roads and public rights of way (PRoW) used for recreational activities at a time when they are most frequently used.
Disappointingly, regarding the potential delivery of the substation in Friston under the Sea Link DCO, the Applicant has not committed to undertake construction under the working hours agreed under the SPR consent which does not include Public Holiday and Sunday working.
We also have strong concerns over the cumulative impacts of the scheme, its relationship and timing with other projects and the consequent impact on socio-economics, tourism, and the environment, need to be effectively assessed.
The Council disagrees with the applicant’s assessment that the local labour force is of low sensitivity, as there are existing skills shortages that are exacerbated by consented and constructing projects, including Sizewell C.
Likewise, the applicant needs to undertake an effective and robust cumulative assessment of the impacts of traffic from overlapping NSIP projects on the Suffolk coast, rather than presuming that these other consented projects have already fully mitigated their harm.
Finally, the impacts of the scheme on the Suffolk and Essex Coast and Heaths National Landscape must be dealt with effectively, but not only that; the applicant must ensure that the Secretary of State can meet the duty to “seek to further the purposes of the designation”, when making the decision on this proposal. This issue also remains unresolved.
For all these reasons, and others set out in detail elsewhere, Suffolk County Council is of the view that development consent should not be granted and continues to object to the scheme.
