BEIS & Energy officials visit the Suffolk Coast September 2022

October 2022: by Bill Halford SASES

BEIS, National Grid, Ofgem, RUK visit East Suffolk on 9th September 2022

A delegation of officials from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the NGESO Onshore Network Transmission Review (OTNR) Team, National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET), Ofgem and Renewables UK visited the area on 9th September.

SEAS and SASES took the officials on a tour of some of the areas most likely to be impacted, accompanied by a commentary along the way on their characteristics highlighting the risk from such development to communities and environment.

Fiona Gilmore of SEAS presented on the unfairness of East Anglia having been scoped out of the Holistic Network Design and proposed that there is still sufficient time for BEIS to re-evaluate the merits of an alternative offshore strategy that would transmit power direct to Brownfield sites much closer to where the power is needed.

The visit was planned to include Aldringham and Friston, as well as Snape, Aldeburgh and Thorpeness, but disappointingly the officials ran out of time on Thorpeness beach and returned to London.  However, several of the officials who had not previously visited this part of the Suffolk coast did leave seemingly genuinely surprised and concerned having realised how precious and vulnerable are this part of our Heritage Coast.