London Array Offshore Wind Farm
Proposed Sub-Station at Cleve Hill
FEEDBACK From Public Exhibition
Held At Graveney Village Hall 27th & 28th February

London Array Ltd held a public exhibition at Graveney Village Hall on 27th and 28th February, when representatives of the project partners were on-hand to explain the project and answer questions. Over the two days we estimate that we had about 150 visitors. We hope that we were able to give a full explanation of the project, the potential impacts and the mitigation measures we aim to adopt. The questions were varied, but did fall into four main topics:-

Visual
· Height and size of buildings and towers.
· Landscaping proposals.
· Will it be visible, and from where?

Noise
· Will the noise from the sub-station be noticeable, at the nearest residences and further afield?
· Will there be a noticeable transformer Œhum¹?
· How will noise be controlled?

Traffic
· How many additional HGV¹s, and over what period?
· How will the abnormal loads (the transformers) get to the site, particularly over the rail bridge?
· Road safety issues.
· Will London Array make a contribution to the proposed new village footpath?

Nature Conservation
· How will the cables be brought ashore to minimise disturbance to nature conservation?
· Impacts on protected species.

These issues will be fully addressed in our Environmental Statement, which will be submitted with the planning application. In addition, there were some questions on the planning process, and the next steps. The process is summarised below.
· Currently we are in the process of finalising our environmental impact assessment and preparing the Environmental Statement. This is a formal document that will accompany offshore and onshore works. This document will be ready around mid May, so we can confirm that no formal planning application for the sub-station at Cleve Hill (or the offshore works) will be made before that date.
· Following the submission of our planning and consent applications the Environmental Statement will be made available for inspection. Swale Council is formally required to advertise that it has received the onshore planning application and to invite comments.
· In addition to the formal requirements for consultation undertaken by Swale Council, we will be undertaking further consultation with statutory bodies and local residents. That will be the opportunity for us to explain our proposal in detail and set out the mitigation measures we aim to implement.
· In parallel, we will be consulting with Swale Council to seek agreement on draft planning conditions that would be attached to the planning permission, if granted. Planning conditions place formal requirements on the developer and are a means of ensuring that mitigation measures proposed by the developer, or required by the Council, can be legally enforced.
· It is difficult to judge how long it will take for Swale Council to consider our proposal, take account of comments received and reach a formal decision. In any case, we cannot seek internal approval and make a financial commitment to the project construction until all the major planning approvals and consents (for both the on-shore and off-shore work) have been granted. The timing of planning approvals and consents is largely outside of our control but we hope that all major approvals could be in place within 12 months of application.

We have a project web site at www.londonarray.com, which describes in more detail the project consortium, the onshore and offshore elements of the project and the consenting process. It also has a section for questions to be submitted to the project. We hope that you found the exhibition and the information in this leaflet useful. It is our objective to consult fully on our project proposals, and if we were unable to respond to you fully at the exhibition, or you require further information, please contact us via the website or by letter, phone or email as shown below.

Tim Proudler
London Array Ltd
c/o E.ON UK Renewables Ltd
Westwood Way
Westwood Business Park
Coventry CV4 8LG
Tel: 024 7642 4378
Fax: 024 7642 5443
http://www.londonarray.com