Our ongoing programme of stakeholder and public engagement will continue throughout the year.
We will progress our engineering design and development and begin the essential survey work – including archaeological, geological and ecological surveys–that will inform our planning application.
Consultation and engagement will continue ahead of our submission of planning applications to the relevant local authorities.
We will also prepare and submit a funding application to the regulator Ofgem.
If we are successful in obtaining the necessary consents, we will award a contract to a construction company who will be our partners in delivering the project. This will follow a competitive tender. We will then gear up for starting construction on the project.
If we have received confirmation of funding and all the necessary permissions are in place, construction will then take place. This includes installing the underground cables and, once this is complete, the removal of up to 20 pylons and around 7km of overhead line to transform this beautiful landscape. Once the pylons are removed, we will continue restoring the area and enhancing biodiversity.
We formed our Stakeholder Reference Group for the VIP Cotswold project, with local experts from Gloucestershire County Council, Tewkesbury Borough Council, Cotswold District Council, Cotswolds National Landscape, Cotswold Way National Trail & Access Partnership, Historic England, Natural England, the Environment Agency and Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust.
We hosted our first Stakeholder Reference Group meeting in February 2022, to consult with members on our early stage plans, ideas and progress to date and to listen to their feedback. This feedback will be used to continue shaping our plans and we will retain an ongoing dialogue with this group and other stakeholders and landowners in the project area.
Engineers and other members of our team began investigating the feasibility of a project in the Cotswolds, including looking at a potential cable route and location for sealing end compounds.
This early work was fed back to the Stakeholder Advisory Group which approved progress, and was shared initially with officers from Cotswolds National Landscape.
We contacted landowners to provide them with an introduction to our plans and requested access to undertake our initial survey work.
The VIP project’s national Stakeholder Advisory Group began to consider a range of potential projects to take forward in the price control period running from 2021-2026. North Wessex Downs AONB was prioritised as a replacement for the paused New Forest project, and the Cotswolds National Landscape was identified along with several others on the shortlist for further consideration and feasibility work.
Towards the end of 2020, the Stakeholder Advisory Group confirmed to National Grid that it would like a project on the Cotswold Plateau to be further developed.