How to write your letter

Deadline: Nov 3rd

The more objection letters, the better! Our target is 500 from Walberswick!

Write now! Ask your friends to write! Ask anyone you know who loves the peace, tranquility and natural spaces of Walberswick to write to National Grid Venture Lionlink about their invasive plans to build a landfall site in the heart of the village and bury a corridor of underground cabling, running under the river, across the marshes, through our hedgerows and along our streets.

The deadline for the receipt of objections is Nov 3rd – either by email or post.

Important!

  • Please consider sending your letters to other politicians and decision makers.

  • The contents of the letter can be similar or the same but each must be addressed directly eg. “Dear Dr Coffey MP” and for Claire Coutinho, Dear Secretary of State”.

  • Please make sure you spell names correctly.

Who to send it to:

  1. MOST IMPORTANTLY National Grid Ventures address: Freepost NGV LionLink Consultation, Holborn Gate, Floor 8, 26 Southampton Buildings, LONDON WC2A 1AN (no stamp needed)

  2. Therese Coffey, MP address: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

  3. Claire Coutinho, MP address: Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

  4. Richard Smith (our county Councillor) address: Endeavour House, 8 Russell Road, Ipswich, Suffolk. IP1 2BX

  5. If you want to send more see grey box titled Want to do more?

What to say in your letter:

  • Use in Subject: Response to LionLink Supplementary Non-Statutory Consultation

  • Use as title of letter: Sites: G & G2 Walberswick

  • Put your Name and address at the top and write or sign your name at the bottom.

  • Please keep it short (one page): personal, concise and polite.

Use your own words as much as possible. Your message should come from the heart. It might mention as totally unacceptable the increased traffic, safety of residents, noise and destruction of the tourist economy, in addition to the damage that would be caused to ancient habitats, biodiversity and the environmentally sensitive reedbeds. Just say what matters to you.

Below are a two sample letters with different approaches:

Need a hand?

If you want help drafting and emailing your letter, do come to one of the drop-in Letter writing workshops @ Heritage Hut on the Village Green, run by Jeremy Solnick (jeremysolnick@msn.com)

18 October 6-8.30pm & 25th October 6-830pm

Want to do more?

If you have the energy, it would also be very helpful to send your letters directly to National Grid Decision-Makers

It can be the same letter you send, but please individually address them.

Mr John Pettigrew, CEO, National Grid PLC, 1 - 3 Strand, London, WC2N 5EH

Ms Katie Jackson, President, National Grid Ventures Ltd, 1 - 3 Strand, London, WC2N 5EH

Mr Ben Wilson, Chief Strategy and External Affairs Officer, National Grid Ventures Ltd, 1 - 3 Strand, London, WC2N 5EH

Mr Martin Moran, Senior Business Development Manager, National Grid Ventures Ltd, 1 - 3 Strand, London, WC2N 5EH

Mr Mike Elmer, National Grid, PLC 1 - 3 Strand, London, WC2N 5EH

Mr Fintan Slye, Executive Director, National Grid ESO, 1 - 3 Strand, London, WC2N 5EH

Sample letters A & B

<Letter Title> Sites: G & G2 Walberswick

<Your Name + address>

<date>

Reference: Response to LionLink Supplementary Non-Statutory Consultation

Dear <insert>

Please use your own introduction here, saying how long you have been a resident in the village, or a regular visitor, etc.

I object in the strongest possible terms to the proposal from National Grid Ventures to land the proposed LionLink cable on either of the landfall sites (G and G2) in Walberswick, or on the other proposed sites on the Suffolk coast all of which are situated in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). I am a supporter of using energy from renewable sources but LionLink would itself cause direct environmental damage. The best alternative would be to establish an offshore grid and bring the cables ashore where there is a brownfield site closer to where the demand for power is greatest, in London and the South East. This approach has been proven in both the Netherlands and Belgium and is supported by Therese Coffey MP for Suffolk Coastal and Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

NGV also need to consider the cumulative impact of LionLink on top of all the other energy project proposals including Sizewell C, the Friston substation and the other cable connection, EA1 & 2, Sealink, Nautilus and others.

Both the LionLink landfall proposals (G and G2) would have a devastating impact both on the natural environment that surrounds Walberswick and on the social and economic life of the village.

LionLink would involve laying cables, digging trenches and building access roads through local landscapes, woods, hedgerows, dunes, reedbeds and saltmarshes, that for decades have enjoyed a series of environmental protections- SSSI, AONB, RAMSAR, Special Protection Areas. These habitats and all the wildlife that live and breed within them, will suffer irreparable damage arising from both during the years of construction and more permanently. In addition, the current Government has just proposed that this area of the Suffolk coast be awarded UNESCO World Heritage Status for the East Atlantic Flyway. LionLink would have a significant impact on biodiversity

It is these environmentally protected habitats along with Walberswick’s beautiful beach that draw in 200,000 visitors every year. Tourism is the bedrock of the local economy supporting shops, pubs, cafes, camping and self-catering businesses. The revenue for these businesses which employ many local people would be severely affected both in the short and longer term by the construction of LionLink. Increased traffic, congestion, noise, light pollution, dust would be a major deterrent to visitors not only in the summer but all the year round.

For all these reasons I object very strongly to the LionLink proposals to bring the cable ashore in Walberswick or at any of the other locations on the Suffolk coast and I urge National Grid Ventures to explore the offshore solutions which many experts believe would be both economically viable and less damaging in environmental terms.

Yours sincerely,

<your signature>

<your name>

<Letter Title> Sites: G & G2 Walberswick

<Your Name + address>

<date>

Reference: Response to LionLink Supplementary Non-Statutory Consultation

Dear <insert>

Please use your own introduction here, saying how long you have been a resident in the village, or a regular visitor, etc.

Writers, artists and nature lovers are drawn to Walberswick by its timelessness - a unique combination of wild shores, ancient villages, wetlands and wildlife. The Lionlink project, to carve motorway- size trenches through this Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty, containing the East Atlantic Flyway, a passage for migratory birds, nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site will mean huge swathes of the coast will be trashed.

Walberswick is one of the four possible landfall sites – but the only one in the centre of a village which has no roads, only lanes. The main street is a thoroughfare, with no pavements or streetlights. Lionlink say they’ll ‘probably’ build a haulage road – more destruction - but inevitably, construction traffic will travel through the village, having to share the thoroughfare with children, cyclists, dogs, mobility scooters, visitors and horses. Accidents waiting to happen, with no room to swerve, in a small village, where the main economy depends on tourism.

In Walberswick, the proposed landfall site is Manor Field – overlooking the protected Walberswick Marsh, surrounded by houses and a Conservation area. Spectacularly impractical.

Overwhelmingly, locals believe that the multi-year building process would deafen and decimate the village, as the massive cables are embedded across the countryside towards a new converter station to be built near Friston.

It is crystal clear that the plan simply doesn’t work, on any level, at any of the targeted sites in Suffolk. It’s nonsense to ‘land’ energy over 100 miles away from where it’s needed.

There are two nuclear power stations (Sizewell A & B) visible from the village, with the distinct possibility of the gigantic Sizewell C being built alongside them and a forest of wind farms, on the horizon. From any standpoint, the East Anglian coast is already contributing massively to hosting energy projects – perhaps more than any other part of the country. We cannot do more!

Crucially, many of us believe that none of it needs to happen. There is a sensible alternative. It’s much more direct to go straight from the wind farms, offshore, through the North Sea Corridor to brownfield sites.

Dr Therese Coffey, our local MP and Secretary of State for the Environment, agrees and East Suffolk District Council is actively promoting the offshore option.

Lionlink say they targeted the Suffolk coast in the name of green energy, which is in the ‘national interest’.

It is neither ‘green’, nor in the ‘national interest’ to dig up a protected area of irreplaceable countryside, when there is a viable alternative.

I urgently request National Grid Ventures LionLink to explore the offshore solutions, which many experts claim are viable, cheaper and use an already established brownfield alternative.

Yours sincerely,

<your signature>

<your name>