Last month, Richard raised questions on behalf of Dunton residents attending the public consultation event in Dunton Memorial Hall regarding plans for the Biggleswade substation.
Richard has now received responses which are shared below.
Residents were concerned to know the reasons why the siting of the substation at a location at Stratton business park had a lower priority as per the chart below:
One of the reasons mentioned was lack of contact with the landowner
Richard Fuller, MP for North East Bedfordshire said:
I challenged this as it seemed quite odd. I have now been advised that communications with the landowner have been taking place but that the landowner has not responded to an enquiry about availability of the land. I will be following up on this.
Another reason cited was that the additional costs that would be needed at the Stratton business park site for the high voltage connection cable and would not be required at Dunton. I have now been advised on these additional costs as follows:
“The estimated additional cost for a cable connection to this location is £13.7M and the estimated additional cost for an overhead line connection to this location is £3.5M. I have included the cost for the overhead line to ensure I provide a full response to your question. I would add a cautionary note to these costs that they are based on a high level, desktop exercise and upon any future design works and investigations they may vary.”
Richard added:
There were other provisos mentioned by the National Grid on costs but in any event this is quite a considerable additional expenditure.
