Atlantic Array

---

The Atlantic Array was a proposed offshore wind farm in the Bristol Channel, off the coast of North Devon. Part of the scheme’s proposal was to lay a cable on-shore that would link the array to a sub-station west of the village of Alverdiscott, thereby providing input to the national grid. This proposed cable route would impact a narrow corridor of land near the North Devon coast and also crossed the course of seven small streams. Surveys of the aquatic invertebrate fauna were required to provide input to the EcIA being undertaken by Devon Wildlife Consultants.

Due to local opposition the Atlantic Array project did not proceed, but during 2022 a new project, XLinks Morocco, proposed to lay a submarine cable from solar farms and wind farms in Morocco, along the western seaboard of Europe to the north coast of Devon. The proposed on-shore cable would follow a similar route to that suggested for the Atlantic array project, to the sub-station at Alverdiscott, although with slight variations. Subsequently additional aquatic invertebrate surveys of the streams crossed by this route were undertaken during the course of 2022.