Underwater noise and vibration; and Colonisation of foundations and cable protection.
289. These impacts would mostly be temporary, small scale and localised. Given the distances to other activities in the region (e.g. other offshore windfarms and aggregate extraction) and the highly localised nature of the impacts above there is no pathway for interaction between impacts cumulatively. Whilst it is recognised that across the East Anglia Zone and wider southern North Sea there would be additive impacts, the overall combined magnitude of these would be negligible relative to the scale of the habitats affected. In addition, given the ubiquity and low ecological sensitivity of habitats across the southern North Sea (and indeed across areas deemed suitable for development) sensitivity is also likely to be low or negligible at a cumulative scale.
290. In the case of physical disturbance and smothering during construction there is only potential for such additive impacts if project construction schedules overlap (for example the preliminary stages of construction of East Anglia FOUR may overlap with the final stages of construction of East Anglia THREE). Again although there may be an additive impact these are likely to be of negligible magnitude. In cases where sensitive habitats are present (e.g. Annex I reef), effects would be avoided where possible by micro-siting and design in those projects (as has been committed to for the proposed East Anglia THREE project), therefore there would be negligible or no impacts to these features.
291. Therefore, given that the impacts assessed for the proposed East Anglia THREE project (i.e. project level impacts) are considered negligible or would be avoided by design it is considered that at a cumulative (i.e. additive) level, impacts upon the benthos would be negligible.
10.7.2 Offshore Cable Corridor 292. There is potential for cumulative impacts to occur through the interactions between the proposed East Anglia THREE project export cable and export cables from other windfarms as well as interactions with aggregate extraction sites.
10.7.2.1 Impact 1: Physical Disturbance and Habitat Loss 293. There is a potential for cumulative impacts to occur within the offshore cable corridor where the export cables of many different windfarms would be in close proximity to each other. Up to 12 cables from the proposed East Anglia ONE, East Anglia THREE and East Anglia FOUR projects would be installed roughly parallel to each other and share the same offshore cable corridor to the landfall.
Preliminary Environmental Information May 2014
East Anglia THREE Offshore Windfarm
Chapter 1 Introduction Page 83
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