Norfolk, and the East, are on the brink of becoming the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of Offshore Wind production. The Southern North Sea will be the global hub – putting our region at the forefront of the UK’s ‘Green Revolution’ and bringing thousands of new jobs and opportunities.

That’s why I continue to actively work with parliamentary colleagues and local communities to drive forward the campaign for an Offshore Transmission Network – to avoid the needless environmental damage to our precious rural and coastal landscapes, along with the major disruption that businesses, tourists and communities encounter when each wind farm cables inland to Wembley Stadium-sized Substations.

Although the Government remains firmly committed to its 2030 Net Zero targets and therefore cannot halt all existing applications until an OTN is in place, the policy argument is won and the Government are actively working towards an OTN.

With that in mind, a number of developers with “in-flight” applications are working with BEIS to explore how they may possibly be able to work with other developers to share resources and minimise disruption – and BEIS is working with all developers who have already been granted leases before 2030, but which are not yet in the formal planning process, to explore everything that can be done to mitigate and coordinate them. Post-2030 we should then see the ‘Enduring Regime’ – an OTN.

Rest assured however, with my parliamentary colleagues, I am continuing to do everything I can to help ensure that the OTN campaign moves forward as swiftly as possible – and I remain committed to doing what I can to make sure as many of the pre-2030 applications as possible are in some way included in a better, more coordinated approach to delivering this much needed infrastructure.