Meon Valley MP Flick Drummond has told the secretary of state Grant Shapps an application to lay the Aquind power interconnector through South Hampshire is no longer valid.
Flick said the company’s decision to change where the electricity cable is starting from at Dieppe rather than the original Le Havre means it needs to land in the UK farther east.
She explained there were also better locations in East Sussex at Ninfield where there is network infrastructure.
The application was turned down by the then businesses secretary in 2022 but Aquind sought a High Court judicial review and the proposal was referred back to the secretary of state in a move the MP called ‘disappointing’.
In the letter to Grant Shapps, Flick 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."
However, Flick said the availability of more appropriate routes for the cable to make landfall and have the convertor station was now the major issue.
“It has become clear the cable would not be leaving France from near Le Havre, opposite Portsmouth, but from somewhere near Dieppe, further along the coast. For this point of departure, 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 explained 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.
She added: “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.
“While 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 which come at a high social and environmental cost.”
