Business secretary approves vast offshore windfarm Norfolk Vanguard
A vast windfarm off the Norfolk coast has been approved by ministers for a second time after a local man convinced a high court judge to overturn the decision a year ago.
The high court verdict last February forced the government to reconsider the plans by Swedish renewables giant Vattenfall to build two offshore wind farms capable of generating enough green electricity to power the equivalent of 4 million UK homes.
But on Friday Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, re-approved the Norkfolk Vanguard offshore wind farm, over a year and a half after first giving the project the nod. The consent comes weeks after his department approved the Norfolk Boreas windfarm, its sister project, at the end of last year.
The projects were temporarily derailed last year after a legal challenge by local resident, Raymond Pearce, raised concerns about the effect the offshore wind farms would have on the landscape and the view.
Pearce, who lives near Reepham in Norfolk, argued that ministers had not taken into account the “cumulative impacts” of the two projects and had given “inadequate” reasons for not doing so.
The concerns centred on Vattenfall’s plans for a substation for both projects about 40 miles from the coast at Necton, which would require cables to pass within 80 metres of Pearce’s house. The high court judge added that the plans had attracted “substantial objections” from the local community too. Conservationists also raised concerns about the safety of endangered birds in the area.
Work on the windfarms, located almost 30 miles off the coast, is now expected to begin in 2023 and would “help to cement and maintain East Anglia as a UK renewable energy powerhouse” which could support thousands of jobs in the local area, according
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