Colossal energy station in Yorkshire set to be given approval after no residents object

A meeting of North Yorkshire Council’s strategic planning committee will hear while elected members gave outline consent for the National Grid station to be sited on a platform measuring up to 200m by 260m last year, changes to the planned edifice had reduced opportunities to lessen its impact on the landscape.

Unusually for such a large-scale development there have been no objections lodged by residents or by any parish council in the area.

The proposed convertor station is part of National Grid’s Scotland England Green Link 2 scheme, a 2GW high voltage direct current electrical superhighway cable link to be built between Peterhead and Drax.

The firm is also seeking permission to install high voltage direct current underground cables from the River Ouse to the converter station. It also wants to install high voltage alternating current underground cables from the converter station to the existing Drax 400 kV substation.

On Tuesday (August 13), the committee will hear the 50,000sq m convertor station would include various buildings and pieces of outdoor electrical equipment up to 28.5m above the finished platform level. The two largest buildings to be sited on the converter station platform would measure 110m by 56m.

Councillors will be told the authority’s landscape architect had initially objected to the scheme as they did not consider the proposals sufficiently minimised likely significant adverse landscape and visual effects or provide sufficient new opportunities to better join up existing green infrastructure.

Officers had also concluded more could be done to mitigate the visual impact of the proposed development on 22 hectares of farmland to the east of Drax Power Station and that there was harm arising from the proposal as a result of the lack of scope for suitable landscape mitigation.

An offficer’s report to the meeting states since the outline consent was granted the site of the convertor station platform has been moved, bringing it in closer proximity to the southern and eastern boundaries, cutting opportunities for landscape mitigation.

However, it states National Grid now controls land to the south of the planned convertor station platform and had proposed to form an additional landscape mitigation area featuring a woodland.

Recommending the scheme be approved, the report concluded: “Amendments have been made during the course of the application to ensure the harm arising from the proposed development in these respects has been minimised as much as reasonable and possible.”

Ahead of the meeting, Camblesforth and Carlton division councillor Mike Jordan said residents had accepted that the huge building would be part of vital infrastructure and was among numerous forthcoming large-scale power-related projects in the area.

“The simple fact of the matter is you can’t hide the cooling towers there and that sets the landscape and so unless you’re building something as high as the cooling towers it’s irrelevant really.

“There’s no residents overlooking the convertor station and those that are in the area just shrug their shoulders and know that whatever window they look out of they are going to be looking at cooling towers.

“People are understanding of the fact we need to sort out electricity because without it will be in a bit of a mess.”