Norwich to Tilbury - have your say

The application for the Norwich to Tilbury cabling route has now been submitted by National Grid to the Planning Inspectorate.

The requirement to register

In order for you to make any further submissions, or a request to appear before the hearing, you need to “Register” by 23:59 on 27th November 2025. Failure to register means that you are unable to take part in the proceedings or submit any representations.

You should register online.

What to include in your registration

It is important that you register in the correct name, and with your current address. There may be occasions where different registrations need to be made where you believe that there is benefit in so doing, perhaps to represent different family members, business partners or different tenures. However, you should only make registrations on your own behalf, or where you are directly authorised by others to do so.

You need also to state whether you are supporting, objecting, or just making comments. In the main, CLA members will be objecting to the route, or an aspect of it, but you must state this. If you are objecting, you must be clear what specifically you object to e.g. the need for scheme as a whole, the route, impacts on your business/property, wider impacts or need for or the use of Compulsory Purchase.

You should also state whether you wish to appear before the hearing panel and say why this is necessary. You cannot demand to be heard by the panel, but you can request to appear if you feel there is benefit to the panel in hearing from you - but you need to make the case.

How much detail should you include

You should include as much as you can at this stage. Do not hold evidence back, if you have information – put it in. If you think that you will have more detail to add this can be done at a later date, but you should make adequate reference to this in your registration. Whilst the examining panel will accept more evidence to be presented, they will not accept any new areas/topics to be added to those within the first registration. You will be informed of any further deadlines.

Your representation will be a public document, so you may wish to be cautious about putting too much financial detail (you could refer to lost turnover or percentage reduction in output or profit/loss). You may be sensitive about certain family (trusts or dependent/vulnerable family members), business structures, or future development proposals that are not yet in the public domain. You should either include your previous comments made to earlier consultations or ensure that these are incorporated into this evidence.

What you should focus on in your representation

If you are directly affected by the scheme, you should focus primarily on how the scheme affects your property and your business. There will be different impacts suffered in the run up to the application (from survey work, meetings and business questionnaires), then to construction (access, traffic, erecting the pylons and wiring them) through to completion when the pylons and cables are in situ for many decades.

Direct impacts

Things you might wish to consider are how Norwich to Tilbury will directly impact on your:

• Farming activity – will it make fields difficult to work for arable/livestock cropping? What will be the impact on soils and drainage and how easily can these be rectified? Will it be necessary to change the cropping or stocking in these areas permanently?
• Do you own or operate any diversified enterprises that will be impacted, e.g. self-catering, B&B, leisure, recreation, hospitality businesses or let buildings for use as workshops or offices.? These may be affected by land use change or landscape change.
• Is there wildlife habitat that will be affected by the chosen route and how should that be dealt with. If you are arguing that the route should be undergrounded then impact on this habitat may be much worse, so you might want to include mitigation measures.
• You may also want to consider the impact on archaeology within your ownership or occupation and how the impact on this could be reduced.
• You may wish to include any of your current development proposals, whether these have consent, are in the local plan or planning process, or they may be aspirational (but realistic), in which case you might want to think about how these can be evidenced.
• Do you believe that National Grid are in breach of the Holford Rules taking into account 2.9.20-25 of the National Policy Statement EN-5 or the Horlock Rules if you have a substation? Or are there specific reasons why a different approach should be taken for your land?

Wider impacts

You can also include the wider effects as well, but do not detract from the direct impacts mentioned earlier.

You could include impacts on:

• Local landscape (not all quality landscapes are designated).
• Other houses, villages.
• Local access, increased traffic or roads, impacts on public rights of way etc.
• Wider/combined impacts on local heritage and architecture.

Engagement

You should also outline where engagement with National Grid, or their agents, has been poor and how this has affected your business, or your ability to make robust representations. Where you have put forward representations do you feel that these have been listened to, and followed up? If not, you should detail them. If you have not signed any access, leases or option agreements you should say so and explain why if you have a specific reason.

Queries relating to the above should be directed to the CLA East office in the first instance via east@CLA.org.uk or 01638 590429.