Sussex consultation on Rampion 2 wind farm: events and drop-in dates for Arundel, Littlehampton, Steyning, Washington and other towns

It runs until November 29 at Rampion2.com and will be about the adjustments to the proposed onshore cable route.

After two consultation periods last year, the Rampion 2 team is addressing feedback from Sussex communities, organisations and landowners while continuing to carry out engineering and environmental assessments.

Chris Tomlinson, development and stakeholder manager at Rampion 2, RWE, said: “We want to thank the local communities in Sussex for all the feedback that they have taken time to provide to us. As a result, we are considering a number of potential alternatives and modifications to our cable route, new trenchless crossings and new alternative construction or operation accesses, to help further improve the project and reduce impacts.”

Consultation on the wind farm started in 2020 and a formal nine-week public consultation started in July 2021. The chosen site for the onshore substation, Oakendene near Cowfold, was announced in July this year.

This next round of consultation looks at key organisations and communities who live, work or visit the areas near the potential cable route changes.

The cable route change areas include: Climping Beach to Lyminster, Lyminster to Angmering Park, Crossbush to Sullington Hill (Central Route), Lyminster to Sullington Hill (Modified Route), West and North of Washington, Wiston to Kings Lane and the substation approach (Oakendene in Cowfold, Horsham District).

There will be public consultation events in Arundel, Ashurst, Climping and Washington with maps at Rampion2.com.

The local drop-in events, where people can meet the Rampion 2 team, are on:

Tuesday, November 1 (1pm-8pm), at Arundel Town Hall.

Wednesday, November 2 (1pm-8pm), at Arun Yacht Club, Littlehampton.

Friday, November 11 (1pm-8pm), at Ashurst Village Hall, Steyning.

Saturday, November 12 (1pm-8pm), at Washington Village Memorial Hall.

Chris Tomlinson said: “The electricity cable installation from the wind farm to the new electricity substation would be a temporary impact during construction, as all cables would be buried underground. The Rampion 2 team are committed to reinstate the land back to its former condition as soon as possible after our works. This work would be done on short sections of the route at a time, over a period of 18 to 20 weeks of an overall construction period of 2 to 2.5 years. Where we can improve the route and implement measures to further reduce those temporary impacts, we will strive to do so.

“We can also announce today that in response to feedback on visual effects and shipping from key stakeholders, including Natural England, we have reduced the extent of our offshore wind turbine array proposals by nearly half. In addition, we have decreased the maximum number of turbines down from 116 to 90, while maintaining the potential capacity to generate up to 1200MW.

“We are aiming to submit our final proposals to the Planning Inspectorate next year. Should the project achieve consent, construction could start around 2026, with the wind farm fully operational before the end of the decade.”