He recalled how after the project secured consent from the local authorities and landowners, he gave a short interview to BBC Wales explaining how the connector would go into the beach’s dunes.
The report led to hundreds of calls from furious Potter fans, concerned the cable was going “straight through Dobby’s grave”.
The extent of the uproar eventually forced him to reroute the interconnector away from the beach.
“My colleague Tom, who works in permitting, said, ‘Simon, we’re going to have to respond to these calls.’ And I said, ‘Well, Tom, I’m super busy.’ And he goes, ‘No, no, we really have to respond to this,’” Ludlam said.
He added that when he was told the outcry was because of Dobby’s grave, he responded: “Dobby? Who’s Dobby?”
His colleague insisted, however, that it was a “very, very serious” matter.
“So we got back with the planners and discussed exactly how to reroute the cable so we wouldn’t go any more into Dobby’s grave,” Ludlam added.
The furore about the fictional elf’s grave is only one example of struggles facing major British infrastructure projects.
In 2024, the chairman of HS2 admitted that the project would have to spend £100m on a 1km tunnel to protect rare bats as the high-speed rail link passed through ancient woodland in Buckinghamshire.
The expenditure was demanded by Natural England, as bats are legally protected in the UK.
Tony Juniper, the chairman of Natural England, had previously pointed out it received “a high number of inquiries” about HS2 by people keen on conservation.
Then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak scrapped the HS2 project north of Birmingham because of spiralling costs in 2023, meaning only the new London to Birmingham line will be built. Last year, Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, told MPs that the curtailed line would miss its completion date of 2033.
However, in June while campaigning in the Makerfield byelection, Andy Burnham said that if he were appointed as Prime Minister, he would reinstate the northern leg of HS2.
Etchea Energy was contacted for comment.
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