The Examining Authority (ExA) has published details for prelim and open floor hearings for the examination of National Grid’s Sea Link project for a 2 gigawatt (GW) high voltage direct current (HVDC) cable between Suffolk and Thanet.
The plans include a 28-metre high, 90,000 square metre onshore converter station at Minster marshes in the Stour Valley.
The proposed £1.1 billion high-voltage subsea cable project, designed to strengthen the UK’s electricity grid, will have cables making landfall at two highly sensitive locations: RSPB’s North Warren Nature Reserve in Suffolk and Kent Wildlife Trust’s Sandwich and Pegwell Bay National Nature Reserve. Both sites sit within landscapes of multiple national and international conservation designations.
National Grid needs a Development Consent Order granted to go ahead with the scheme.
As part of the process more than 500 documents have been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate by National Grid, interested parties and representations from organisations, groups and the public.
The Examining Authority will review all representations to help them set a timetable for the Examination. This formally begins the day after the Preliminary Meeting and will run for six months.
Hearing dates and what follows
Dates have now been announced with a preliminary meeting on Wednesday 5 November, 10:00am, virtually via Microsoft Teams.
There will be open floor hearings in Suffolk followed by an issue specific hearing on the scope of the development on Tuesday 11 November, 10:00am, virtually via Microsoft Teams.
For Kent (updated hearing dates):
Open Floor Hearing 2 (Discovery Park and virtually via Microsoft Teams):
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When the Examination has concluded, the Planning Inspectorate will write a report on their findings, including a recommendation regarding whether or not to grant a DCO for the project.
This report will go to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero within three months of the Examination closing.
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has the final say on whether to grant or refuse development consent. They must make a decision within three months of receiving the Recommendation.
Once a decision has been made, there is a six week period in which anybody can legally challenge the Secretary of State’s decision. If a challenge is made, the High Court will decide if there are grounds for the decision to be judicially reviewed.
In all the process will take about 18 months.
Amongst the hundreds of documents is a request for five ‘design’ changes to the DCO application. Four of these are for the Suffolk end of the scheme but one requests an extension of land used to re-route access to the intertidal area from the hoverport at Pegwell Bay “to avoid encroaching on the saltmarsh.”
The document says: “In August 2025 the extent of saltmarsh was recorded further down shore than had previously been recorded and it is now encroaching on the current Order limits and the ramp access for construction, operations and maintenance (O&M) activities from the hoverport.
“Saltmarsh is a sensitive habitat, and the applicant has committed to the avoidance of impacts to this habitat in Pegwell Bay through the use of trenchless techniques at the landfall.
“By amending the Order limits to include an additional access route to the intertidal area, the access route will also avoid the saltmarsh habitat.”
National Grid says it is “engaging with landowners of affected parcels to explain the requirement for additional land and seek agreement for the proposed change.”
The Save Minster Marshes campaign group say National Grid has not carried out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on the hoverport as previously it was earmarked just for temporary storage.
In a submission from Save Minster Marshes it says the hoverport has a large number of threatened and vulnerable species of flora and fauna that are now thriving in a space that has very successfully rewilded since it closed 30 years’ ago. Wildlife in the area includes bats, birds and several varieties of orchid.
The group also points out that the ‘concrete’ is breaking up and 20 years ago it was acknowledged that redevelopment of the site would mean huge clean up costs because the site is built on coal waste.
They add: “Tunnelling under it would be absolutely catastrophic for the very saltmarsh that National Grid is professing to care about.”
Last October Thanet council said it would not allow permission to use the hoverport – which is TDC owned- based on factors including land ownership and the possible disturbance of a national nature reserve.
Documents outlining the Thanet end of the scheme say it will comprise of:
- A landfall point at Pegwell Bay.
- A Transition Joint Bay (TJB) – an underground, concrete box structure where the offshore cable connects to the onshore cable – connecting to cable the converter station.
- A 2 GW HVDC converter station (including a new permanent access off the A256), up to 28 m high plus external equipment (such as lightning protection, safety rails for maintenance works, ventilation equipment, aerials, and similar small scale operational plant) and a new substation at Minster Marshes.
- Removal of approximately 2.2 km of existing overhead line, and installation of two sections of new overhead line, together totalling approximately 3.5 km, each connecting from the substation near Minster and the existing Richborough to Canterbury overhead line.
Permanent access to Minster 400 kV substation and Minster Converter Station will be via a new access point off the A256, north of Jutes Lane. The site will have external lighting.
The converter station will comprise of a DC hall, converter transformers, valve hall, reactor hall, AC switchyard, control building, strategic spare parts building, LV electricity supply, fire deluge pump house, car parking, a permanent access road and landscaping.
The construction of the proposed converter stations would take approximately four years from first site access to reinstatement, excluding ongoing landscaping monitoring or maintenance
An indicative timeline says, subject to gaining development consent, construction works would be expected to start in 2026 and be completed by the end of 2031 with reinstatement potentially continuing into 2032.
A link to the livestream of the prelim and open floor hearings will be made available on the project webpage.
Recordings will be published on the project webpage.
All the details are here – https://nsip-documents.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/…
If only we still had coal-fired power stations instead.
Did you vote Conservative in 1979 and 1983? If so,you already know why they are going extinct.It always amazes me that some people choose to conveniently forget some aspects of modern British history when it suits them.
Had the coal industry been run down in a carefully staged way, we could have converted from fossil fuels to green energy morecquickly and cheaply ,and oh! Putin would not have held us to ransom.
I wasn’t even old enough to vote in 1979, and in 1983 I voted for The Monster Raving Loony Party… and let me guess, you voted Labour both times, yes?
I voted Labour and perhaps I always will.
No surprise there.
In the film a matter of life and death the character Dr Frank Reeves when asked about his politics I am liberal by conviction, conservative by inclination,and labour by experience,and so am I, and in that I follow along a similar path to George Orwell.
Rather than use my vote in the way a football supporter backs his team, or as some kind of nihististic revenge,or in your case as a game show contest, I try to pick the best person to represent the constituency. Often my vote does nothing, but I have done my duty as a resident.
I don’t think Starmer is a bad man, but he believes the system can be fixed, when it is irretrievably broken, and in that he is deluded.
There are a lot of pseudo working class heroes,who use the facility to cause dissent and division without ever having solutions to hand other than picking on the most vulnerable.
You tell us you are a green,fine, so I am I,but this scheme has to go through with as many mitigations as possible,but go through it must.
Nature has a way of reminding on it’s own if we give it a chance, but we need to look at the common interest,rather than saying not in my back yard, which is why support Milliband over Tice any day.
“I try to pick the best person to represent the constituency”
I didn’t when I was a teen in London, but I have done since – hence (apart from voting for Ms. Whitehead last time) my usual support for Sir Roger Gale. More localised elections are a different matter though, with Green generally being my default position with KCC.