Agreement boosts outer harbour

Great Yarmouth’s outer harbour and Lowestoft port both look set to benefit from the giant windfarm set to be built off East Anglia.

And the knock-on benefits could bring greater wealth and more employment to the two towns.

East Anglia Offshore Wind, a joint venture between ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall, has signed a memorandum of understanding with both International Port Holdings (IPH) of Great Yarmouth Port Company and Associated British Ports which owns Lowestoft.

It means the company will now talk to local authorities about the role the two towns and their ports could play in a project which is expected to deliver 7,2GW of offshore wind capacity, enough to meet the electricity needs of over five million UK households.

East Anglia Offshore Wind programme director Jason Martin said they were building a technical and economic case to allow its construction and operations activities to be focused on this part of the country. It cost money to get to the sites and they preferred them to be close to the operation.

Work on the development is expected to start in 2015 about 42km offshore and eventually build around 240 turbines.

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