I am delighted to hear that there will now be a review of the offshore alternative to East Anglia Green proposals set out by National Grid, but having studied the terms of the National Grid ESO review I am in full agreement with the conclusions of the ESN Pylons Action Group and very worried that its scope will be far too narrow. The scoping document still refers to the Norwich to Tilbury link: I believe that this narrow scope will lead to a suboptimal onshore solution, and it is therefore essential that the scope is extended to include all the wind farms currently expecting to land power in East Anglia as well as connectors and interconnectors. In short, it must have similar scope to the review which you have already published in December 2020 and cover options for a coordinated offshore grid. I support the positions taken in this briefing note [redacted]. I would add that the review needs to ignore any existing wind farm connection agreements if they are still subject to planning permission. The planning system needs to serve the wider public interest, and cannot be subservient to individual contracts. The benefits should dramatically outweigh any contractual costs given your previous work published in December 2020 but, if not, then that is a commercial risk knowingly entered into by the parties to the contracts when they executed the agreements prior to obtaining planning permission. Finally, the review needs to make a realistic assessment of timescales for delivery. It should consider the scale of local opposition to the onshore Pylons and Overhead proposals and previous experience with projects such as HS2. Local Opposition to East Anglia Green is extremely strong amongst the population, parish- , city- , county-councils as well as all MPs in the area. Just one year in to the process the Statutory Consultation for East Anglia Green has already been delayed by – I estimate – a year, and a leading Planning KC has issued a strongly worded opinion highlighting legal deficiencies in the process which National Grid ET are following, warning that subsequent stages will be ‘infected’. I suspect that a coordinated offshore grid will be significantly quicker to deliver in practice, an important point if the nation’s net zero targets are to be met.

Dear Sir/ Madam, Thank you for your email which has been received by the Planning Inspectorate. The proposed East Anglia Green Energy Enablement (GREEN) application is currently at the Pre-application stage of the Planning Act 2008 process. Further information about the process can be found at the following link to the National Infrastructure Planning website: attachment 1. The Planning Inspectorate is unable to consider representations about the merits of any application until it has been submitted and accepted for Examination. As the application has not yet been formally submitted to the Planning Inspectorate, your first point of contact should be the developer, National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET). It is important that the developer is made aware of any comments at the Pre-application stage to enable them to consider the points raised before finalising their proposals and submitting the application. Should the application be accepted for Examination in due course, it will be possible to register as an Interested Party by submitting a Relevant Representation. This must be submitted on the ‘Registration and Relevant Representation form’ which will be made available on the project webpage of the National Infrastructure Planning website at the appropriate time. Further information about registering as an Interested Party can be found in the Planning Inspectorate’s ‘Advice Note 8.2: How to register to participate in an Examination’ which can be found here: attachment 2. You may also find it helpful to subscribe to receive email notifications for key events that occur after an application has been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate. Kind regards, The East Anglia GREEN Case Team