The stretch of countryside where National Grid plans to build its bridge over the Fromus River looks, at first glance, like any other quiet corner of Suffolk. But walk it closely, past the veteran oak where barn owls roost, the field cut through by two active badger setts, the riverbanks marked with otter prints, and you realise how much life is woven into this landscape around Saxmundham.
I’ve spoken with several ecologists carrying out surveys for National Grid. They’ve confirmed the badgers, the barn owls, the otter activity. What they haven’t been shown is the full scale of what’s planned here. When I explain the bridge, the access road, and the converter station footprint, two industrial compounds totalling 16 hectares, with metalclad buildings rising 26 metres high on concrete beds, they fall silent, often shaking their heads. They’ve been asked to assess fragments, not the whole picture.
And the whole picture matters, because Sea Link is not just a subsea cable. It opens the corridor for LionLink, a National Grid Ventures scheme, run by the company’s commercial arm, to export energy to the Netherlands for profit.
Sea Link’s cost has already ballooned from £1.1 billion to £3.2 billion, and Ofgem has confirmed it cannot even operate at its full 2 GW rating without further unbudgeted upgrades elsewhere. During the DCO examination, Suffolk Energy Action Solutions showed, using independent engineering analysis that upgrading existing pylon corridors could deliver the same capacity for just £200–£300 million, avoiding both the environmental damage and nearly £3 billion in unnecessary spending. These escalating costs ultimately fall on households already struggling with rising bills.
It’s hard not to miss the contrast: National Grid executives continue to take home record payouts funded by rising consumer bills. On his departure, CEO John Pettigrew received over £6 million, while NESO’s Fintan Slye collected more than £930,000. The more expensive the project, the more the system rewards those at the top.
The National Audit Office has warned that Britain’s ‘Great’ gridupgrade programme is being driven by outdated modelling and weak oversight. Sea Link is a clear example. It was built on an outdated assumption of a 1,852 MW deficit, a deficit that disappeared when Nautilus was relocated months before the application was even submitted. NESO never updated its modelling. Ofgem never challenged it. NGET pressed ahead anyway.
I walk this stretch often, and every time I’m reminded how easily a place can be lost when decisions are made far removed from the people who live with their consequences.
All of this is landing in a region already carrying an extraordinary burden, Sizewell C, multiple substations at Friston, and a cluster of nationally significant energy projects.
Communities here have supported national infrastructure for years, but the cumulative impact is becoming severe. Any new project must demonstrate clear necessity and unquestionable value for money. Sea Link does neither.
With a new government emphasising fairness and responsible stewardship, it is vital that Miatta Fahnbulleh, the new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, sees this landscape firsthand. Not as a local complaint, but as a national example of how outdated assumptions and flawed incentives can drive billions of pounds of unnecessary spending.
It’s time to stop this White Elephant before it tramples the irreplaceable landscape that we hold dear, and the principles that ought to protect it.
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