> The National Trust, which owns the land, has previously warned pilgrims not to do so, as the area is ecologically sensitive, but it seems that people still do so.
Ah okay, laying a few stones is ecologically sensitive, but if a billion dollar company wants to dig up the entire beach for a cable, that's not a problem.
I have literally never heard anyone associated with the environmental movement say:
"This area is ecologically insensitive. I'm not too worried what you do here."
Until they define some map or scale of what "ecologically sensitive" means, I put zero weight on that statement. It's meaningless. They say it about everything because it is their job to do so.
A common trick in mining is to send surveyors to an area they don’t want so the various interests just so happen to decide that the area being surveyed is the one with historical / ecological significance. After that has been established they send surveyors for the area they do want.
The ecological studies also cover the surrounding areas. They can’t say that absolutely everything is significant so to make the stronger case they pile the significance into the area they think is the likely site to be developed. Then the miners are ‘responding’ to the feedback by relocating to a less significant location that already has been ecologically studied and deemed insignificant.
What we can say for certain is that the sole source of this claim is the project director for Greenlink, Simon Ludlam, and he made the claim as an anecdote on a podcast this week. The project's public consultations were in 2019.
Non-British people might also like to know that the UK news media is in what's called the silly season, where they run any old nonsense as news because Parliament is in recess, the MPs are on their holidays, and there's a dearth of serious announcements to cover: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
> The fans’ resistance to having Dobby’s “grave” desecrated seemingly prevented the undersea cable from going through the area. It was instead rerouted in an area that was close to some Bronze Age remains and urns, which, ironically, are associated with human burial.
> instead rerouted in an area that was close to some Bronze Age remains and urns
To be fair, in the UK (and much of Europe) bronze age remains are everywhere. But there’s only 1 fictional Dobby grave.
Like farmers will regularly dig up a bronze age thingamabob while plowing a field. For example [1], [2]. There’s a story like this every couple of years.
while I do agree with this point, I want to point out that this isn't quite a fair comparison.
every single entity has (normally) a single (real) burial site. Us grouping many unknowns in one group, and comparing to a single specific one is not quite fair...
there is only one burial site of many other fictional characters including some other well known and beloved ones.
They didn't say the location contained them, just that it was associated with them, which obviously it is for at least some fraction of the population.
I'm so tired of needing technical workarounds because of human stupidity. Exact same thing as the "age declaration" bullshit we see all over. Dig that trench, bury the cable, put the sand back, end of the story. Here in France we use public money to pay "experts" to ensure building wind turbines won't disturb the "natural energy highways" or some other bullshit before delivering the permit, they may even propose alternative locations for the turbine to disturb less the energies, bunch of lunatics.
Reminds me of this classic article from Michael Lewis:
> Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called "hidden people"-or, to put it more plainly, elves-in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, "we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people."
If it's a legal requirement to have the government check for hidden people before you do building, why do they need to hide the fact they did it? I'm not a Christian but I'm pretty sure I'd still need to deconsecrate a church before knocking it down
> I'm not a Christian but I'm pretty sure I'd still need to deconsecrate a church before knocking it down
What makes you think that? If you own it, it isn't a listed building, and zoning laws allow it, you can knock it down in most countries. I'm not sure that would be illegal anywhere.
Deconsecration is part of canon law for some religions. Whether you as an individual care about those or not is a personal matter. I doubt that there are many cases where the previous owner forgot to deconsecrate the church when they sold it off.
UK law can be quite intertwined with the church in a lot of cases, so I wouldn't want to confidently say this wouldn't turn up somehow. And churches are also pretty likely to be listed, anyhow. (It could also turn up as part of the planning permission which you do need for demolishing a large structure in the UK)
>According to The Guardian, project manager Simon Ludlam pointed out in a BBC interview that the cable would transition underwater at Freshwater West.
Nicely played, Simon. All those international trans-Atlantic fiber optics cables must really rustle JK Rowling's jimmies, yet she still continues to post ignorant bigoted abusive tweets over them.
> The National Trust, which owns the land, has previously warned pilgrims not to do so, as the area is ecologically sensitive, but it seems that people still do so.
Ah okay, laying a few stones is ecologically sensitive, but if a billion dollar company wants to dig up the entire beach for a cable, that's not a problem.
Maybe the company has at least made committments to restore it to the way it was after?
I have literally never heard anyone associated with the environmental movement say:
"This area is ecologically insensitive. I'm not too worried what you do here."
Until they define some map or scale of what "ecologically sensitive" means, I put zero weight on that statement. It's meaningless. They say it about everything because it is their job to do so.
I'm guessing you also haven't asked. All places are very much not the same degrees of sensitive and important.
A common trick in mining is to send surveyors to an area they don’t want so the various interests just so happen to decide that the area being surveyed is the one with historical / ecological significance. After that has been established they send surveyors for the area they do want.
Why wouldn't those various interests just complain about the next area being surveyed? Why would they stop after the first?
The ecological studies also cover the surrounding areas. They can’t say that absolutely everything is significant so to make the stronger case they pile the significance into the area they think is the likely site to be developed. Then the miners are ‘responding’ to the feedback by relocating to a less significant location that already has been ecologically studied and deemed insignificant.
If you say no 100% of the time, your work product won't be worth much.
OK. What are some ecologically unimportant places in England? Somewhere I could throw up a nuclear power plant without anyone raising a fuss.
Birmingham?
There is some skepticism about the veracity of this. Of course, be skeptical of the skepticism.
https://bsky.app/profile/dsquareddigest.bsky.social/post/3ms...
What we can say for certain is that the sole source of this claim is the project director for Greenlink, Simon Ludlam, and he made the claim as an anecdote on a podcast this week. The project's public consultations were in 2019.
The anecdote starts at 16m55s: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/can-we-connect-the-wor...
Non-British people might also like to know that the UK news media is in what's called the silly season, where they run any old nonsense as news because Parliament is in recess, the MPs are on their holidays, and there's a dearth of serious announcements to cover: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
The whole story is absolute nonsense.
> The fans’ resistance to having Dobby’s “grave” desecrated seemingly prevented the undersea cable from going through the area. It was instead rerouted in an area that was close to some Bronze Age remains and urns, which, ironically, are associated with human burial.
> instead rerouted in an area that was close to some Bronze Age remains and urns
To be fair, in the UK (and much of Europe) bronze age remains are everywhere. But there’s only 1 fictional Dobby grave.
Like farmers will regularly dig up a bronze age thingamabob while plowing a field. For example [1], [2]. There’s a story like this every couple of years.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/23/farmer-bronze-ag...
[2] https://allthatsinteresting.com/rhubodach-scotland-bronze-ag...
while I do agree with this point, I want to point out that this isn't quite a fair comparison.
every single entity has (normally) a single (real) burial site. Us grouping many unknowns in one group, and comparing to a single specific one is not quite fair...
there is only one burial site of many other fictional characters including some other well known and beloved ones.
There’s another!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1l6vm84d0o
TBF, human burial sites are a dime a dozen. There's relatively few locations associated with house elf remains.
None, to be precise.
They didn't say the location contained them, just that it was associated with them, which obviously it is for at least some fraction of the population.
If anyone doubts that popular media has at least somewhat taken the place of religion, here you go
And made the cable reroute through a Bronze Age burial site too...
This is a rehash of the Guardian article (submitted here yesterday with no traction), which should the the link:
Harry Potter fans force relocation of £430m undersea cable to avoid Dobby’s ‘grave’
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/10/harry-po...
It is predicted that Binface will win by a landfill.
If you every get the chance, go visit Freshwater West… it's a beautiful part of the world
Dobby dies?! Spoilers!
The cost of planning the alternative route hasn't been published anywhere yet AFAIK, although it's non-trivial to estimate.
I'm so tired of needing technical workarounds because of human stupidity. Exact same thing as the "age declaration" bullshit we see all over. Dig that trench, bury the cable, put the sand back, end of the story. Here in France we use public money to pay "experts" to ensure building wind turbines won't disturb the "natural energy highways" or some other bullshit before delivering the permit, they may even propose alternative locations for the turbine to disturb less the energies, bunch of lunatics.
What are you talking about ?
Reminds me of this classic article from Michael Lewis:
> Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called "hidden people"-or, to put it more plainly, elves-in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, "we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people."
https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2009/4/wall-street-on...
I'm trying the imagine the scenario where the government official reports that elves have been found. On what evidence?
If it's a legal requirement to have the government check for hidden people before you do building, why do they need to hide the fact they did it? I'm not a Christian but I'm pretty sure I'd still need to deconsecrate a church before knocking it down
> I'm not a Christian but I'm pretty sure I'd still need to deconsecrate a church before knocking it down
What makes you think that? If you own it, it isn't a listed building, and zoning laws allow it, you can knock it down in most countries. I'm not sure that would be illegal anywhere.
Deconsecration is part of canon law for some religions. Whether you as an individual care about those or not is a personal matter. I doubt that there are many cases where the previous owner forgot to deconsecrate the church when they sold it off.
UK law can be quite intertwined with the church in a lot of cases, so I wouldn't want to confidently say this wouldn't turn up somehow. And churches are also pretty likely to be listed, anyhow. (It could also turn up as part of the planning permission which you do need for demolishing a large structure in the UK)
> I'm not a Christian but I'm pretty sure I'd still need to deconsecrate a church before knocking it down
I am a Christian and it would not occur to me that that was a thing. It's just a building.
Catholics have a ritual for it I think.
Ofcourse the really old churches are turned into monuments and they come with free dead people under the building. Can't do much with those.
its undersea right, why would it matter ????
seeing the picture online seems that the grave would not be touched
>According to The Guardian, project manager Simon Ludlam pointed out in a BBC interview that the cable would transition underwater at Freshwater West.
Nicely played, Simon. All those international trans-Atlantic fiber optics cables must really rustle JK Rowling's jimmies, yet she still continues to post ignorant bigoted abusive tweets over them.