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EDF certainly believes in keeping us busy in the run up to Christmas. Not only has it launched a fifth stage of consultations, it also last week submitted a new planning application to East Suffolk Council to move facilities of Sizewell B to make space for Sizewell C.
1. Fifth Consultations - deadline 18 December
EDF's detailed proposals are online or are summarised in an online exhibition. We are still wading through the specifics, but some of key issues are:
a) Traffic
- The possibility (not certainty) of 8 train movements - 7 at night, 1 in the day, including Saturdays - and maybe even 10 movements for a short time to reduce HGV numbers.
- Making the permanent Beach Landing Facility (BLF) longer (up to 100m) and adding a second, temporary, BLF up to 400m long - operating at night, with a conveyor overhead across the beach, taking shipments between April and October. If EDF adopted the highest capacity option, this BLF could replace trains rather than lorries, and note that feasibility studies are still being undertaken.
- EDF claims that HGV numbers on a typical day could be reduced from 650 to 500/day, and busiest day numbers from 1,000 to 700/day, but note that it has still not decided where its aggregate for Sizewell C would come from.
b) Sea Defences
EDF is mulling what kind of sea defences the site would need. It is considering a simpler "sheet pile" defence during construction, and planning to increase the minimum and maximum heights of the permanent defences to "provide confidence the defence will be sufficient".
c) Materials
- More material would be kept on site and used as infill or for "landscaping", raising the possibility we would get our own version of Hinkley C's "Alps".
- An additional spoil heap up to 15m high in the main construction site.
d) Flooding/Drainage
- Changing the SSSI crossing to a single span bridge with embankments, for which statutory agencies have been pressing for years.
- More land needed for the Sizewell Link Road to create drainage pools, and for better visibility at junctions.
- A temporary outfall pipe that would go over the temporary sea defences to remove surface water from the construction site.
- Moving the water resource storage area nearer to the quarries and spoil heaps.
e) Environmental and community impact
- New compensatory fen meadow habitat at Pakenham in West Suffolk
- More trees lost (due to "conflicts between retained landscape and access to parts of the site")
- "Options" regarding re-location of Sizewell B facilities. If agreement can be reached with Sizewell A. EDF may be able to avoid building a car park on Pillbox Feld (see below)
- A landscaping bund around the Southern Park and Ride
- Some new PRoW links and other footpath changes, including at Kenton Hills and the Two Villages Bypass
2. EDF's revised planning application to ESC - deadline 10 December
EDF has submitted a new planning application to East Suffolk Council, which it hopes will enable it to proceed with moving Sizewell B facilities before a decision is made about whether Sizewell C would get planning consent. The application may be heard between the end of December and end of February 2021 but comments must be received by 10 December. We will share recommendations on how to respond later this week once we have assessed the new proposals. EDF is attempting to reach agreement to use land at Sizewell A for some of this work, which may mean Pillbox Field can be saved, but Coronation Wood would still be felled.
3. More Key Dates
This Wednesday the Chancellor will publish his one year Spending Review and a National Infrastructure Strategy. It is not clear whether this will include mention of Sizewell C, but we remain vigilant. The Energy White Paper is now expected "before Christmas".
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