UPDATE 22 AUGUST 2026
A few hours after this article was published, Babergh District Council issued its screening decision: a full Environmental Impact Assessment is required, which is the outcome I said we should welcome. Before ABP can submit a planning application, it must now prepare a full Environmental Statement covering landscape, noise, shadow flicker, wildlife, shipping and the construction period.
The decision notice, which you can read on Babergh’s planning portal under DC/26/03279, describes the turbine as likely to appear “extremely prominent and incongruous” in views along the estuary, confirms the height in writing at 150 metres to blade tip, and records the nearest homes as around 560 metres away at The Strand in Wherstead and 580 metres away in Greenwich.
The proposal has since been covered by BBC Suffolk, the Ipswich Star, Suffolk News and ipswich.co.uk.
One thing that has continued to surprise readers is that the turbine is in Babergh District, not in Ipswich. The Ipswich Borough boundary is little changed since 1835. It used to run down the middle of the Orwell. But after the war when Cliff Quay Power Station was built, land was reclaimed for a coal store and ash tip. The ash tip was built out over the Borough boundary and into what is now Babergh, and this patch of land is now the proposed turbine site.
Everything else in this article stands. There is still no planning application, no consultation has opened, and nobody has missed anything. The application is still expected around the end of December or early January, and I will update this page and explain exactly how to comment the moment it arrives.
An early guide for Gainsborough residents: the facts so far, who will decide, and when you can have your say
First, the most important point: you haven’t missed anything. Nothing is decided. There has been no public consultation yet, no deadline has passed, and no opportunity to have your say has been and gone. Very little information about this proposal is even published at this stage. I am sharing this post now because I believe Gainsborough residents deserve the earliest possible warning about something this significant on our doorstep, rather than hearing about it for the first time when a planning application lands. This article sets out everything I have been able to establish so far, and I will provide updates as we learn more.
What is being proposed
Associated British Ports (ABP) is the company that owns and operates the Port of Ipswich. ABP is preparing plans to build a single, very large wind turbine on land at Cliff Quay, on the east bank of the River Orwell, close to the Orwell Bridge and the sewage treatment works.
Babergh District Council’s planning team have confirmed the height to me: the turbine would stand 150 metres from the ground to the tip of its highest blade. I for one find it hard to picture that, so some local comparisons help. The Orwell Bridge stands 43 metres above the water; this turbine would be three and a half times that. The Mill, the 23-storey tower on Ipswich Waterfront that is the tallest building in Suffolk, is 71 metres; the proposed turbine would be more than twice that. Another useful comparison is Kessingland just south of Lowestoft, where two wind turbines were built next to the A12 in 2011. Those turbines are 125 metres tall. At 150 metres, the turbine proposed for Cliff Quay would be a quarter as tall again and would equal the tallest onshore wind turbine anywhere in England.
Pictures to help you judge the scale
To help residents picture what this means, I have prepared some illustrations, which you can see with this article. The first is a scale drawing comparing the turbine with familiar landmarks: an ordinary house, the Orwell Bridge, The Mill, and one of the Kessingland turbines. The second is a set of Google Earth views with a simple model of the turbine placed at the location shown on Babergh’s planning portal, so you can see how it might appear from different parts of town.
To be clear, these are my own rough illustrations to show the scale. Take them for what they are, produced in good faith, but by an amateur, not official images. In the Google Earth views the model uses the confirmed 150 metre height with typical turbine proportions, because ABP has not yet published a detailed design, and the position comes from the council’s site map rather than a survey. If ABP goes ahead with its application, it will be required to produce professionally verified images showing exactly how the turbine would look from key viewpoints. Those official images, not mine, are the ones to rely on.
Who decides, and why it is not Ipswich Borough Council
Every planning application in England is decided by the local planning authority for the place where the development would stand. Although this site sits right on Ipswich’s doorstep, it is just outside the borough boundary. Through an accident of history, a small patch of land on the east side of the river falls within Babergh District Council’s area, and the proposed turbine site is on that patch.
That means it will not be an Ipswich Borough Council planning decision. ABP is the applicant. Babergh District Council will make the decision. Ipswich Borough Council has no power to approve or refuse it. What Ipswich councillors like me can do is make sure Ipswich residents are heard in Babergh’s planning process, and that is exactly what I intend to do.
Why this matters for the debate about local government in Suffolk
This is a perfect illustration of why Local Government Reorganisation (streamlining Suffolk’s six existing councils into three) matters so much for Ipswich. Here is a structure taller than anything in our town, standing a few hundred metres from thousands of Ipswich homes, whose fate will be decided by a council that Ipswich residents do not elect and cannot hold to account. Nobody designed it that way on purpose. It is simply what happens when a town of Ipswich’s size is boxed in by archaic boundaries that have hardly changed since 1835. It is exactly why I believe reorganisation must give Ipswich boundaries that reflect the real shape and size of our town, so that in future, decisions affecting Ipswich are made in Ipswich, by people accountable to the residents they affect.
Where things stand right now
No planning application has been submitted yet. What ABP has lodged so far, under Babergh reference DC/26/03279, is a preliminary technical request called an Environmental Impact Assessment screening request. In simple terms, ABP is asking Babergh one question: before we apply, tell us whether we will need to produce a full, formal study of the environmental effects of this turbine, covering things like landscape, noise, shadow flicker from the rotating blades, wildlife, and shipping on the river.
Babergh’s planning officers must answer that question against rules set by national regulations, and their answer is expected any day now. Given the scale of what is proposed and how sensitive the estuary is, I expect the answer will be that a full Environmental Impact Assessment is required, and we should welcome that. It would mean ABP has to study and publish the full effects of this turbine before anyone is asked to decide anything, which is exactly what a proposal of this significance deserves. Whichever way it goes, the screening decision does not approve or refuse the turbine. It only settles how much environmental homework ABP must hand in with its application. Both the request and the answer will be published on Babergh’s planning portal under DC/26/03279, which anyone can view online.
What happens next
ABP is expected to submit its full planning application around the end of December or early January. That is when the formal public process starts. Babergh must publicise the application, notify people nearby, and open a consultation period during which anyone can submit comments supporting, opposing or questioning the proposal. Those comments become part of the evidence Babergh must weigh when it decides. If the timing falls over the Christmas holidays, I will be pressing Babergh to allow a longer consultation window than the legal minimum, so that nobody misses their chance to comment.
What I and colleagues will be doing
Many homes in Gainsborough and along the river face this site directly. The decision will be Babergh’s, but the impact of an approval would be felt here. So together with my colleague Cllr James Whatling, fellow councillors across Ipswich, and our Member of Parliament Jack Abbott, I will be working to make sure this is not something that just happens to us. We will be pressing ABP to come and present its plans openly to Ipswich residents and to answer questions in public. We will be pressing Babergh to consult properly across the borough boundary and to give people adequate time to respond. And I will make sure that questions and concerns residents raise with me are put directly to ABP and to Babergh’s planning team.
Some people have asked me whether I oppose this turbine. My honest answer is that it would be premature to declare a position on a planning application that nobody will see for months and without having heard what local people think. No design has been published and no assessment has been done. What I can say is that I am watching this closely and with concern, that the scale proposed raises serious questions that ABP must answer, and that my job throughout will be to look out for the interests of Gainsborough residents and make sure your voices are heard when the time comes.
What you can do
If you have questions or concerns about this proposal, send them to me now and I will make sure they reach the right people. When the application is published, I will explain here exactly how to submit a formal comment to Babergh, which is simple and can be done online. I will post updates on this website and on my Facebook page when the screening decision is issued, and again when the application appears.