Our role centred on the preparation of a comprehensive Arboricultural Impact Assessment (AIA) in accordance with BS 5837:2012, submitted as a technical appendix to the Environmental Statement accompanying the Development Consent Order (DCO) application. The assessment covered a complex, linear onshore cable route extending from the landfall at Climping to the National Grid substation at Bolney, passing through a diverse treescape that included ancient woodland, veteran and near-veteran trees, hedgerows and Wood Pasture and Parkland.
The AIA provided a robust evidence base to inform route selection, construction methodology and mitigation design, ensuring that arboricultural constraints were fully integrated into the wider Environmental Impact Assessment. Particular emphasis was placed on avoiding and minimising impacts on irreplaceable habitats, coordinating closely with landscape and ecological assessments, and ensuring that effects on trees were clearly understood without duplication across technical disciplines.
We continued to support the project through the DCO examination, providing responsive arboricultural input to written representations, examination questions, Statements of Common Ground and hearings, helping to provide clarity and technical assurance as the application was scrutinised by the Planning Inspectorate and stakeholders.
The Secretary of State granted development consent for the scheme, which allows for up to 90 offshore wind turbines and associated onshore infrastructure and represents a major milestone for a project capable of supplying electricity to the equivalent of over one million homes and reducing carbon emissions by approximately 1.8 million tonnes per year.
