Aquind: Conservative MP Flick Drummond urges government to reject interconnector plans

Plans from Aquind for an interconnector cable – running energy from La Havre in France to Lovedean via Eastney – are in the hands of the government. Campaigners and politicians alike have been opposed to the plans, including the Let’s Stop Aquind group in Portsmouth and Non à Aquind in France.

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In January, a second judicial review of the plans was approved by the government.

Meon Valley MP Flick Drummond has urged the government to reject the plans, and even proposed a new place for an interconnector to enter the UK.

In her letter to the secretary of state for energy security and net zero, Grant Shapps, she said: ‘The original objections to this project still stand, and their weight is not diminished by the decision of the court.

‘These include concerns about the siting of the convertor building and the impact of noise and disruption to local communities during construction and operation; the routing of the cable through environmentally-sensitive environments; the disruption to residents along the route of the cable in a very densely-populated area of Portsmouth and Waterlooville and the impact of this project of views from South Downs National Park southwards.

‘It has become clear the cable would not be leaving France from near Le Havre, opposite Portsmouth, but from somewhere near Dieppe. It would make much more sense to bring the cable ashore in East Sussex, on a shorter subsea cable route and with the availability of network infrastructure.’

She added that it was not clear whether the scheme has permission from the authorities in France for any point of departure and she asked the minister to liaise with the French.

‘I would ask you to reject this application and I know many of my constituents will be making similar representations to you on the grounds I mention above,’ she said.

‘I appreciate the commitment of the government to securing diversity of supply in our energy market, there are better ways of achieving it than projects like this.’

A spokesman for Aquind said: ‘Aquind takes all feedback it receives seriously. It will be up to the secretary of state to review the submissions. The Aquind Interconnector will help achieve our national net zero de-carbonisation objective.’