LionLink
UPDATE JULY 2026 – LionLink targeted consultation – 7 July to 5 August 2026
National Grid Ventures (NGV) has announced a targeted four-week consultation on the LionLink project, running from 7 July to 5 August – right in the middle of the summer holiday period.
The company says the consultation is intended to gather views on a number of localised changes to the project, following feedback received during its January statutory consultation. The full consultation documents are available at Saxmundham Library, Southwold Library, and in the LionLink online document library HERE.
For a quick read HERE is the brochure.
The proposed changes include:
- An alternative landfall in Walberswick – G3 [There is no appropriate location at Walberswick and this third one now impinges on other housing plus nightingale and night Jar nesting areas].
- Options for works to Benhall Railway Bridge and its inclusion into the project boundary (Draft Order Limits) [This is to support Sea Link’s application for this inappropriate access route].
- Widening the project boundary (Draft Order Limits) at Lymballs Lane [Realising the Lymballs Lane is too small a road to accommodate construction traffic NGV intend to build a new haul road in parallel to the Lane.]
- A small number of refinements to the project boundary (Draft Order Limits) at access points from local roads and our construction areas.
Many local residents are likely to view these as little more than incremental changes, rather than any meaningful revision of the project. National Grid Ventures says it is listening to the community. Yet one of the most controversial changes is the inclusion of Benhall Bridge within the project’s red line Draft Order Limits. Councils and campaigners strongly opposed this access route throughout the Sea Link DCO process, maintaining that a northern access route would cause far less environment and community impact.
Phil Smith from the WALL campaign sums up many of these concerns in his BBC Radio Suffolk interview and the accompanying BBC article:
There are no open days only one online webinar on Tuesday 21 July at 6–7.30pm. You can register to attend HERE.
NGV have delayed their DCO Application until the first quarter of 2027 and it is therefore expected that the DCO Examination will take place Autumn 2027.
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UPDATE JANUARY 2026 – LionLink Statutory consultation – 13 January to 10 March 2026
National Grid Ventures (the commercial arm of National Grid Plc) launched the LionLink Statutory Consultation from Tuesday 13 January to Tuesday 10 March 2026 for its interconnector from Belgium to Friston.
Click HERE for the full consultation documents
Click HERE for a quick 10-minute read
Click HERE for the leaflet which has maps
Open Days:
- Sat 24 Jan – 11am – 4pm, Fromus Centre IP17 1AL
- Sat 31 Jan – 11am – 4pm, Walberswick Village Hall IP18 6TZ
- Fri 06 Feb – 2pm – 7pm, High Lodge Leisure, IP17 3QT
- Sat 21 Feb – 11am – 4pm, Westleton Village Hall, IP17 3AD
- Sat 28 Feb – 11am – 4pm, Yoxford Village Hall, IP17 3HN
Webinars:
- Wed 4 Feb 2026, 6 – 7:30pm
- Tue 3 March 2026, 6 – 730pm
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UPDATE 18 FEBRUARY 2025
As of 18 February National Grid has announced that its preferred landfall site for LionLink is Walberswick.
National Grid Ventures claims that Walberswick has shorter onshore cable routes, lower combined environmental impact and less traffic disruption, amongst other reasons. We say, where is the medium-term holistic comparison of this route/solution vs a brownfield location closer to demand, which would give rise to far fewer negative onshore impacts?
READ more about the decision, chosen route and timetable in National Grid’s LIONLINK Community Newsletter Feb 25 HERE.
LionLink is a proposed High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) connection between Holland and Suffolk, a joint project between Dutch TenneT (the Dutch Transmission System Operator) and the developer National Grid Ventures (NGV) a non-regulated, for profit company. It is an interconnector cable that will allow for exchange of energy between the UK and Holland, however whereas at the Dutch end wind-farms are connected to their MPI (Multi-Purpose Interconnector platform) to pool the energy offshore, at the UK end there is no offshore integration, with no wind-farms currently planned to connect. This is therefore simply a way for NGV to sell energy for profit when market supply and demand conditions allow for it. See a simple diagram of the Dutch and UK ends of the interconnector HERE
This project will have a devastating impact on the local landscape, wildlife and tourism. National Grid has once again demonstrated a total disregard for Suffolk Coastal’s special and protected areas of unique importance. The cumulative impacts to the region from LionLink, Sea Link and other planned projects will be felt by everyone, and all supporters up and down the Suffolk Coastal area need to reject current plans and push for better solutions.
We must all do everything we can to stop the other National Grid (NGET) project Sea Link, as it will open the floodgates to more and more energy projects to the area. SEAS urge Walberswick supporters to engage in the Sea Link DCO to reinforce key messages that this is disastrous for Traffic on the A12, disastrous for tourism in Suffolk Coastal and that better solutions involve using greater offshore transmission to transport offshore wind energy directly to brownfield onshore sites closer to London.
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UPDATE 6 MARCH 2024
On 6 March 2024 National Grid revealed the preferred landfall sites and cabling routes for the LionLink interconnector between Holland and the UK, with proposed landfall at Southwold or Walberswick. You can read LionLink’s Supplementary Non-Statutory Consultation Report HERE
This makes it more likely that Sea Link an HVDC cable between Suffolk and Kent, will come onshore between Aldeburgh and Thorpeness. SEAS understanding is that Aldeburgh North Warren has been chosen for SEALINK and TWO other schemes. They can only squeeze in two or three M11 width cable trenches through NORTH WARREN RSPB, hence they have to find an additional landfall site further north for LionLink.
SEE the current CUMULATIVE IMPACT MAP of planned landfalls and cable tunnel corridors HERE
READ the BBC’s article on the LionLink announcement HERE and an ITV summary with useful maps of just some of the many projects due to have a devastating impact on the Suffolk Coast HERE
SEAS continues on TV, Radio and in the Press to challenge these plans, WATCH our appearance on ITV Anglia on 6 March HERE
READ the arguments against current plans in SEAS Response to the LionLink Supplementary Non-Statutory Public Consultation HERE
SEAS has been promoting a better solution, pooling energy offshore and taking power with subsea cables closer to where it will be used, coming onshore at an existing brownfield site – see our Pilot Tests proposal
These are the wrong plans in the wrong places!
SEAS analysed LionLink’s massive Environmental Impact Scoping Report, and sent its formal response objecting on four counts:
1) Roads and Traffic
2) Tourism and Hospitality
3) Coastal erosion and Geology
4) Biodiversity and Ecology
READ the SEAS Response to the LionLink EIA Scoping Document
Further Information:
Website: https://www.nationalgrid.com/national-grid-ventures/future-developments/lionlink
Email: info@eurolink.nationalgrid.com
ARCHIVE:
SEAS Response to NGV’s First Public Consultation
The first non-statutory LionLink public consultation document is here.
See the LionLink virtual exhibition and project maps here – scroll down to ‘Virtual exhibition and downloadable resources’.
EuroLink Interconnector Timeline
What SEAS say about EuroLink Interconnector
EuroLink Interconnector Key Documents
EuroLink Interconnector in the Press
Cumulative Impact - SEAS Submissions into the EA1N/2 Examination
- SEAS Submission Final Submission Re: Cumulative Impact, 6 October 2021
- SEAS Supplementary Submission on Cumulative Impact Deadline 13 – 5 July 2021
- Cumulative Impact, Evidence from National Grid, SEAS Deadline 11 Submission
- Cumulative Impact, SEAS Deadline 9 Submission
- Cumulative impact, SEAS Deadline 8 Submission
- Norfolk Vanguard and cumulative impact, SEAS Deadline 6 Submission
- Cumulative Impact, SEAS Deadline 5 and Deadline 1 Submission
- Cumulative Impact, SEAS Deadline 4 Submission
- Cumulative impact, SEAS Deadline 3 Submission
- Cumulative impact, SEAS Deadline 2 Submission
- NGESO and NGETS, Deadline 2 Submission
The Way Forward - A Split Decision
- The offshore turbines are recommended for consent.
- The onshore infrastructure is rejected in favour of full consideration of better locations for this infrastructure where the adverse impacts are minimised at a brownfield or industrialised site.
Campaigners call for ‘split decision’ over Suffolk windfarm projects, East Anglian Daily Times, 19 July 2021
SEAS Further submission with regard to a ‘split decision,’ A ‘Split Decision’- A Positive Way Forward, 5 July 2021
SEAS Submission to the Planning Inspectorate Re: The ‘Split Decision’ February 2021
Therese Coffey MP campaigns for a ‘Split Decision’ and to reject the Friston Substation site February 2021
The Way Forward - Offshore Integration
The benefits of an integrated offshore transmission network far outweigh any benefit gained from continuing with a radial transmission system.
Key Documents
Crossed Wires: Maintaining public support for offshore wind farms, Policy Exchange, July 2021
The Offshore Co-ordination Phase 1 Final Report, NGESO, 16 December 2020, NGESO: “Adopting an integrated approach for all offshore projects to be delivered from 2025 has the potential to save consumers approximately £6 billion, or 18% in capital and operating expenditure between now and 2050”. Importantly, footnote 5 states, “This means applying an integrated approach to all offshore projects that have not yet received consent”.
Energy White Paper, Powering our Net Zero Future, December 2020
On 6 November 2020, in response to Mr Duncan Baker’s adjournment debate, the then Energy Minister, and now the newly appointed Secretary of State for the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Mr Kwarteng, made a very encouraging response and said, amongst other things:
- The offshore wind industry had evolved since 2015;
- There was a shift in the industry towards integration.
- Point to point transmission was recognised as having severe detrimental impacts onshore
- Technology was available to build an offshore integrated network
- Industry was engaged through the OTNR
- The argument for some form of offshore network has been won
In July 2020 the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy announced a major Review, the Offshore Transmission Network Review to address the barriers it presents to further significant development of offshore wind, with a view to achieving net zero.
The findings of the Integrated Offshore Transmission Project (East) 2015 Report concluded that an integrated offshore solution was in the interests of the UK as a whole.
It is illogical for further radial connections to the grid to be approved. The acutely detrimental impacts of radial connections must now be properly recognised in the Planning Balance.
What is a 'MOG'? Is it the answer?, SEAS, June 2020
In the Press
UK
UK National Grid in talks to build an energy island in the North Sea, New Scientist, 11 October 2021
'Money can't compensate' for disruption caused by offshore wind, campaigners say, EADT July 2021
Prime Minister says coast could be the 'Riyadh of offshore wind' in PMQs, EasternDaily Press, 24 February 20021
U.K. Power Grid Moving Offshore to Support $27 Billion Wind Boom, Bloomberg, December 2020
Outdated regulation is slowing investment in onshore electricity grid, The Guardian, 1 November 2020
Offshore Wind in UK – Roadmap Required, Offshore Wind, October 26 2020
Change the way offshore wind farms connect and save billions - report finds, Eastern Daily Press, September 20 2020
Offshore wind blows hole in case for National Grid electricity role, The Times, October 8 2020
Modular Offshore Grid (MOG) - Can these ideas stop the countryside being dug up? Eastern Daily Press, June 27 2020
Norfolk MPs lobby Kwasi Kwarteng, Energy Minister at BEIS, SASES, 11 June 2020
Greenpeace suggests taking a more 'strategic approach' to offshore wind grid infrastructure, including increasing the number of grid connections to land shared between several projects, ReNEWS.BIZ, June 4 2020
Offshore Ring Main (ORM) feasibility study announced after Norfolk MPs met with Energy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng to discuss their concerns, Eastern Daily Press, June 2 2020
NORTH SEA INTEGRATION
North Sea EU countries step up plans to harness wind power, Financial Times, 20 May 2022
Plans for Offshore Wind-to-Green Hydrogen Energy Islands in Germany and Denmark Offshorewind.biz, 20 May 2022
Denmark maps seas for future offshore wind farms and energy islands, Recharge, June 8 2020
Denmark confirms massive wind plans for 'world's first energy islands' in North Sea and Baltic , Recharge May 20 2020
Denmark eyes 10GW offshore wind 'islands' in $45bn plan, Recharge, December 2019
North Seas ministers seek rules for meshed offshore wind grid, Recharge, December 4 2019
The USA
Growing chorus’ endorses multi-user transmission system, Riviera May 2020
Multi-user US offshore grid could 'save $1bn' ReNEWS.Biz, May 2020
Report Finds $1B in Grid Upgrade Savings, Other Benefits in Planned Transmission Approach to Offshore Wind, Yahoo Finance, May 2020
Campaign With Us
We are asking you to write, to the Secretary of State for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), see full details HERE