Vattenfall Selects Norfolk Offshore Wind Zone O&M Base
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Vattenfall has selected Peel Ports as the preferred bidder, and its port at Great Yarmouth as the location for the operations and maintenance base of the Norfolk Offshore Wind Zone in the UK.
This was said about the competition to host the facility.
Vattenfall said that the competition was fierce to secure the agreement with an excellent bid from Lowestoft and Associated British Ports. With both ports offering excellent services it is clear that East Anglia’s potential as a superpower of offshore wind is secure.
I have a few thoughts.
Lowestoft In Suffolk And Great Yarmouth In Norfolk Must Work Together
This Google Map shows the coast between the two ports.
Note.
- Great Yarmouth is at the top of the map.
- Lowestoft is at the bottom of the map.
- The two towns are less than twelve miles apart.
- The Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour, is towards the top of the map.
The Google Map shows the port in more detail.
Note.
- Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour only opened in 2009.
- It has an average depth of 10 metres.
- It was planned as a container port, but the ships didn’t materialise.
- Some consider it to be a bit of a white elephant.
Could the Outer Harbour be used to assemble floating wind turbines?
I think it could but at present, there are no plans to use floating wind turbines off the coast of Norfolk.
I suspect though, if someone decided to build floating wind farms to the East of the Vattenfall’s Norfolk Zone fields, that Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour could be used to assemble the floating wind turbines.
This Google Map shows the Port of Lowestoft.
Note.
- There is over a kilometre of quays.
- It doesn’t have the water depth of Great Yarmouth.
- There is a lot of brownfield sites along the River Waveney.
- The East Anglia One wind farm is managed from Lowestoft.
Both harbours have their good and bad points.
- Both have good rail connections to Norwich.
- Lowestoft has a rail connection to Ipswich and has been promised a London service.
- Road connections to Ipswich and Norwich need improvement.
I suspect that it was a close contest, as to the port that got the Vattenfall contract.
A Lowestoft And Great Yarmouth Rail Connection
This map from Open RailwayMap between the two towns.
Note.
- The existing railways are shown in yellow.
- Former railways are shown in black dotted lines.
- There was even a railway along the coast.
The only rail connection between the ports is via Reedham, where the track layout is shown on this second OpenRailwayMap.
Note.
- Reedham station is in the North West corner on the line to Norwich.
- The line going North-East goes to Great Yarmouth.
- The line going South goes to Lowestoft.
There used to be a chord connecting Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, but it was cancelled by Beeching’s grandfather.
There is certainly scope to improve the rail connection between the two ports.
- There could be a convenient change at Reedham, if the timetables were adjusted.
- Trains could reverse at Reedham.
- The chord could be reopened to allow direct trains.
It wouldn’t be the most challenging rail project to have an hourly rail service between the two ports.
A Lowestoft And London Rail Service
This was promised with a frequency of something like four trains per day (tpd)
I think it should run between London and Yarmouth with a reverse at Lowestoft.
The Anonymous Widower 
Greater Anglia invested in the 755 bi mode units to allow through services to be operated to Lowestoft again but despite the taxpayer is subsidising them the town hasn’t received the promised through service and would say not much chance of it happening now rail economics have been changed by covid.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | March 17, 2023 |
I wonder, if Stadler have a shortage of engineers problem. They are introducing services in Cardiff, Glasgow and Liverpool and all are running late. The Greater Anglia trains must be coming up to their first major service, where it is rumoured that some 755s will have a battery pack. And there’s the problem of late delivery of the 720s.
Abellio has also been the subject of a management buy out.
I think we should watch what happens in May.
Comment by AnonW | March 17, 2023 |
GA have set the standard for new train introduction out performing all the other operators by a country mile. Problem is Treasury hold the purse strings and railways costing too much money so wont accept additional costs on a service to Lowestoft which will lose money. Also now Lizzie line have got exclusive use of the Electrics from Stratford the fast lines are close to capacity as they also have to provide a multimodal path every hour and at 75mph they take up paths so i doubt you will ever see this service. Be better to provide a semi fast service from Ipswich every two hours that connects out of the Norwich service
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | March 17, 2023
I doubt it will lose money. In the 1970s, I used to live near Woodbridge and regularly went to London catching the early morning London train from Lowestoft. It was packed.
When it was stopped, everybody had to drive to Ipswich, where there was no parking. That problem has been rectified by masses of car parking at Ipswich station.
I suspect though three things will help Network Rail get the extra paths for the Lowestoft to London services.
Increasingly, Felixstowe to London freights are being electrically hauled and with some new freight rolling stock, we’ll be seeing faster freight on the Great Eastern.
Class 93 and 99 will be able to bring heavy freight trains out from Felixstowe to London, thus avoiding the engine change at Ipswich.
Digital signalling will also help massively.
Comment by AnonW | March 18, 2023 |