Planning D-Day for controversial White Cross cables bid at Saunton Sands

A controversial bid to lay cables under Saunton Sands and some of North Devon’s most cherished beauty spots will face its D-Day next week with councillors set to decide the application once and for all.

Cables for the 100-megawatt White Cross offshore windfarm, 31 miles off the coast, are proposed to make landfall at the northern end of Saunton Sands. From there, they would be tunnelled inland under Saunton Golf Course and the Taw Estuary, connecting to the national grid at East Yelland.

Ironically, the location is where troops trained for the actual D-Day, more than 80- years ago.

The application which has generated huge opposition locally and 1,000 letters of objection is on the agenda for the planning committee of North Devon Council when it meets on Wednesday, May 7 at Barnstaple Rugby Club at 10am.

Above: Saunton’s beach and surrounds is used by a wide variety of beachgoers from walkers, surfers and kaykers to anglers and dog walkers. Credit: Paula Ferris/Coastwise

For almost two years, local campaign groups including Save Our Sands and Love Braunton have argued the proposals could cause irreversible harm to the beach itself, the environment, the protected nature systems behind the beach, sand dunes and salt marshes.

They say there are alternative locations to drive the cables through and point out that it is ridiculous a second similar project is being touted for Abbotsham to accommodate the ambitious X-Links scheme proposing to pipe in energy from Morocco.

The proposed area for the White Cross cable includes several sites of special scientific interest (SSSI), special areas of conservation (SAC), the UNESCO North Devon Biosphere Reserve, and is part of the North Devon National Landscape.

Above: Saunton and its surrounds are home to a huge variety of flora and fauna. Credit: Paula Ferris/Coastwise

In just six days, SOS and Love Braunton crowdfunded more than £10,000 to pay for legal advice, representation and challenge at the planning meeting.

Paula Ferris of Coastwise North Devon is among the campaigners. She said: “Too much information has resulted in less clarity and more concern over the two years of this troubled planning application. For me it has increased my worry over the construction methods and their impact, particularly at Saunton and on the Marsh.

“These concerns have been fuelled by reading the concerns of the statutory agencies, Natural England and the Environment Agency and the realisation that too much has now been left to subsequent resolution should the application be successful.

“Instead of clarifying these fundamental issues and the many others, the applicant asks us to take them on trust with talk of local benefits. But the jobs are unspecified, as are other benefits, except perhaps the extraordinary but unsupported claim of future environmental gain. 

“There are other cable routes.”

Other concerns surrounding the application are the effects of disruption for the area during the construction period – 40% of the car park for popular tourist and surfing beach Saunton would be lost during the period, while there are expected to be up to 90 movements of heavy lorries per days through the narrow and busy streets of Braunton.

White Cross has said steps were being taken to ensure the cabling work did ‘not have any significant or long-term impact on the local environment’. A previous statement said: “In the two locations where we do pass under a special area of conservation, we will be using what’s known as trenchless drilling, a technique which allows us to avoid disrupting the surface.”

But objectors are far from convinced. Comments on the SOS Facebook page, being collated for the planning meeting, include:

‘This is an environmental disaster waiting to happen’.

‘Devastating to the environment and local community, the proposal is fundamentally flawed and deliberately downplays the irreversible damage that would be done’.

‘Devastating to local businesses, tourism and residents as well as wildlife, the land & the ocean with a certainty that the cables will also become a future problem’.

‘Ironic that a project being flagged as ‘green’, if allowed, will destroy a UNESCO and ANOB designated area’.