SSE Renewables has announced the launch of a statutory consultation on its proposed Southern North Sea offshore wind farm project, North Falls – a 50/50 joint venture with co-developers RWE Renewables.

North Falls is a proposed extension to the existing 504MW Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm, and comprises an offshore array area totaling 150km2 sited around 20 kilometres off the East Anglia coast and an onshore grid connection location in Tendring, Essex. Underground cables would carry power from landfall near Frinton-on-Sea around 24 kilometres to a new onshore substation.

In this third round of consultation, the project team is seeking comments from communities and the wider public on its project proposals, and specifically on its preliminary environmental information report (PEIR).

This report sets out the initial findings from the thorough environmental impact assessment carried out by the project over the past three years. This work included onshore and offshore surveys, desk-based research, and stakeholder consultation to identify potential environmental and community impacts from the project, and how those impacts could be dealt with.

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Andy Paine, North Falls Project Director, said: "The consultation is a key chance for those with an interest in the project to review the current proposals and provide comments, particularly on any elements where their local knowledge may provide invaluable.

"The proposals presented are not the final application, but rather this is an opportunity for the local community and others to influence the details of the application before it is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate."

Following its previous two consultation in October 2021 and October 2022, this current consultation presents updated project proposals, particularly around its three options for transmission infrastructure, and offers a number of ways for people to feed in their views. There will be an online consultation portal and two webinars plus the chance to meet the team at five Essex events in early June being held in Great Bromley, Tendring, Frinton-on-Sea, Thorpe-le-Soken and Ardleigh.

For those in coastal regions potentially impacted by views of the wind farm, North Falls has also created a 3D interactive computer model with views from 17 different coastal locations for people to be able to see how it could look.

The consultation will run until Friday 14 July 2023. All the reports, maps and details related to the consultation, including the dates and venues of the in-person events, are now available on the project's consultation portal: stat.northfallsoffshore.com/ which can also be accessed via the website: www.northfallsoffshore.com.