* Update - National Grid has reopened the consultation into Sea Link and you have until 11th August 2024 to comment, for more details on how to submit your comment visit National Grid's website.

I grew up in the village of Minster near Ramsgate and I have always been so grateful to have been brought up in a village neighbouring marshland and connected to Pegwell Bay. I spent my childhood immersing myself in the natural world - I continue to do so and it’s made me who I am today. I have a deep connection with the natural world. I love it, I need it, we all need it; besides we are nature.  

The natural world brings me so much joy. Sadly, the love for it comes with a lot of doom and gloom. Witnessing the continued decline of wildlife and loss of habitat, often in the name of private financial gain. 

It’s a sad reality that in my lifetime (I’m 40) the world has lost well over half its wildlife. In fact, we’ve lost 69% of the world's wildlife in 50 years.  

Right now, my stomping ground of Minster Marshes and Pegwell Bay is under threat from National Grid with a development known as Sea Link. They want to build and disturb a place that is incredibly special. 

National Grid (a private company paying billions in profit to shareholders every year) have unveiled plans to upgrade the grid that delivers our growing demands for electricity - something that of course is needed. However, the locations they plan to bring in the linking cable and build the associated infrastructure will have a giant, negative, and irreversible impact on the incredibly special Sandwich and Pegwell Bay National Nature Reserve (NNR) and Minster Marshes. In short, their plans are  

• Installing over 130km of subsea cable running between Suffolk and Kent 

• Make landfall at Kent through Sandwich and Pegwell Bay NNR 

• Build the converter and sub stations within Minster Marshes, resulting in the loss of 13ha of valuable habitat  

• Install 2.25km of new overhead cables  

The list of how it will affect the last wild part of Thanet is a long one but here’s a few points:  

• It’s a low-lying area that regularly floods and will be affected by rising sea levels in the near future  

• It will cause significant biodiversity loss  

• New pylons are a proven aerial threat to birds  

• The area will lose its character landscape with the loss of long views  

• Light and noise pollution from the site will have adverse impact on wildlife and us   

• These converter stations hum loudly 24/7 causing noise pollution which will impact wildlife (especially the resident bats and owls) and us 

• The area is being developed at a rapid speed already. The cumulative impact on wildlife will be significant   

• The run-off from this giant infrastructure during heavy rainfall will have a significant impact on the Marsh and downstream 

• Disturbance during construction alone will have a giant impact on the area. 

A group of us at “Save Minster Marshes” have been working hard to raise awareness about this project. A lot of people are surprised just how big it is and how devastating it will be. We have support from thousands of people that want to protect this special place. Now I’m on board with the wonderful Kent Wildlife Trust who are asking National Grid to “Rethink Sea Link”.  

Having met with National Grid and reading through lots of their documentation it’s clear they had no idea how special this place was when they came up with these plans. A large chunk of their research has just been “desktop studies” they do not know the land like us naturalists and the people at Kent Wildlife Trust do. Over the years National Grid have already been developing the area and pushing wildlife away, they don’t have a very good history. 

I know Pegwell Bay extremely well, it’s nationally protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and internationally protected as a Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar. Much of the life there is in the public eye - it’s an amazing place and I’m fortunate to live right next to it now. However, until now we have kept very secretive about the wildlife on the Minster Marshes because we want it to be left alone.  

All my life I’ve been watching the incredible wildlife there - much of it even breeds there and relies on Minster Marshes. We have breeding Barn Owls, Long Eared Owls, Turtle Doves, Nightingales, Ravens, Peregrine, Bats, Badgers, Beavers, Brown Hares, and so much more.  

Many migrating birds from the continent follow this route into the Stour Valley and is part of the East Atlantic Flyway, a migratory route used by millions of birds annually. The light pollution, pylons, and electromagnetic fields will have a big impact on them. We often find casualties that have collided with the pylons, despite some of them being installed with ‘bird deterrents’. 

Pegwell Bay is an important feeding ground for wetland birds. Every day when the feeding is cut off by high tide the birds head out into the Stour Valley to feed at the marshes, it’s a superhighway for birds. We have a giant list of the birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, and plants that visit and live there.  

Like many, I understand and support the need for green energy solutions. However, it seems National Grid do not understand that the climate crisis goes hand-in-hand with the biodiversity crisis, and both should be tackled together. Recovering and protecting nature can provide natural solutions to climate change. 

Please join the campaign to protect our environment from this massive project. They need to build it elsewhere and “Re-think Sea Link”. 

National Grid haven’t even mentioned any mitigation plans in their proposals. The marine, coastal, and terrestrial area is home to a significant and diverse range of wildlife, including endangered and critically important species. The size and scope of the project will lead to catastrophic population declines and push some species closer to extinction.