On 17th June 2014, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change made the East Anglia ONE Offshore Windfarm Order 2014. This included in Schedule 10 (generation assets) and Schedule 11 (transmission assets) two deemed marine licences in accordance with Section 149 of the Planning Act 2008.
Since receiving consent, East Anglia One Limited has been through a process of revision of the deemed marine licences via discussions with the Marine Management Organisation (and its statutory advisors).
On the 2nd of September 2014 we submitted a request to the Marine Management Organisation to vary the deemed marine licences contained as schedules to the East Anglia ONE Offshore Windfarm Order 2014. The request included detail on the proposed changes to deemed marine licences, a supporting statement setting out why the proposed variation should be considered acceptable (by reference to the assessment of impacts set out in the original environmental statement) and that it would not bring about any material change to the Development Consent Order, together with further relevant additional information to support the changes (i.e. environmental considerations).
It was the view of East Anglia One Limited that the variation requested represented changes that were minor or non-material. The requested variations fell under a number of categories broadly comprising:
- Amendments associated with the naming of consultees/approval bodies and review time scales;
- ‘Tidying up’ some minor errors and inconsistencies within the generation and/or transmission Schedules that occurred as a result of the deemed marine licences being split late in the examination process; and
- Amendments to monitoring requirements on the basis of recent industry developments and scientific evidence.
The Marine Management Organisation has accepted these changes and provided a varied deemed marine licence for the project. The updated deemed marine licence and associated correspondence can be found here.