Forewind

East Riding of Yorkshire Council has given its unanimous support to the Dogger Bank Creyke Beck offshore wind energy development proposals.

The Planning Committee meeting held last week discussed the proposed project, which will connect into the national grid at an existing substation at Creyke Beck, near Cottingham. Every committee member agreed with the recommendation from the Director of Planning and Economic Regeneration’s report, which was to raise no objection to the proposal.

The development could have a total generating capacity of up to 2.4 GW which means Dogger Bank Creyke Beck has the potential to generate around 8 Terawatt hours (TWh) of green power every year, which is equivalent to the electricity used annually by approximately 1.8 million British homes.

Forewind Head of Onshore Development, Mark Thomas said the conclusion noted that the proposal would contribute significantly to the increased provision of renewable energy and the onshore visual impact of the converter stations would be far outweighed by the benefits, and with mitigation would be acceptable.

Forewind fully involved the East Riding of Yorkshire Council throughout the pre-application phase, with regular meetings plus the establishment of a community-working group comprising local representatives.

“This group was instrumental in helping to define a mutually acceptable site for the onshore converter stations and enabled us to incorporate advice from the Council at an early stage,” he said.

The development consent order application for the two 1.2GW projects is now with the Planning Inspectorate who will examine it and make a recommendation to the Secretary of State by early 2015. If consented construction work would start in 2017 at the earliest.