In January 2023, RWE entered into Agreements for Lease with The Crown Estate for DBS East and DBS West, giving RWE exclusive seabed development rights for the sites.

Offshore and onshore surveys began in March 2021, including metocean data collection (which looks at both meteorological and oceanographic conditions) and a series of geophysical geotechnical and environmental surveys.

A non-statutory consultation on our proposals was held between 09 September and 14 October 2022 to:

• Introduce the DBS projects;
• Explain the site selection process and scenarios for the substation zones and onshore cable corridor and;
• Collect feedback on our proposals.

In Spring 2023, we published the Preliminary Environmental Information Reports (PEIR) for the projects and between 06 June to Monday 17 July 2023 we held our Statutory Consultation inviting feedback on our proposals and the PEIR.

We asked for feedback on:

• Proposals for array areas;
• Landfall scenarios;
• The onshore cabling and substation locations.

Responses to our Statutory Consultation are feeding into the project design and will be set out in detail in a Consultation Report which will be submitted as part of the application for a Development Consent Order.

In response to feedback from the consultation, we have finalised locations for the landfall and the converter stations and amended the cable route. All landowners that are involved in the revised route have been invited to participate in a targeted consultation period held between 13 November – 10 December 2023.

Final changes up to submission may still occur due to ongoing technical work.