Harry Potter fans have forced a new £430m electricity cable linking the UK and Ireland to be rerouted after protesting it would defile the "grave" of Dobby, the fictional elf from the film series who is "buried" on a Welsh beach.
Dobby's grave on Freshwater West
The character was buried on Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, from 2010. Fans often visit the fictional gravesite to leave stones inscribed "Here Lies Dobby" despite being requested not to by the National Trust who own the land.
In 2022 the National Trust agreed the grave could stay after a consultation, but has asked visitors not to leave souvenirs.
Greenlink interconnector route changed
The £430m Greenlink interconnector, which connects the National Grid to Ireland, was originally planned to pass through the location of the "grave", project manager Simon Ludlam revealed on the Energy Revolution podcast.
Harry Potter fans discovered the proposals after Ludlam indicated where the 125-mile cable to County Wexford would go underground at Freshwater West during a BBC interview, reports The Guardian.
He said: "We did the shot, we finished, I went back to London, and they then aired it a couple of weeks later. And we got hundreds of calls, I mean, hundreds of calls."
Ludlam admitted he was unaware who Dobby was, and became puzzled by the calls the company received, recounting how a colleague informed him: "Apparently we're going to go straight through Dobby's grave".
"I said: 'Dobby, who's Dobby? I don't know Dobby?' I said: 'He's a fictitious character in a fictitious book, the whole thing is fictitious, what are you talking about?'"
He said the colleague responded: "No it's very, very serious."
Alternative route avoids grave
The company subsequently brought in planners to identify an alternative route that steered clear of the alleged grave. "A lot of people were very happy about that, and the project is now going [ahead] and Dobby's happy."
Ultimately, he noted, "we went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby's grave".
The Bronze Age remains include urns linked to human burial. A Pembrokeshire council planning document said: "The pottery vessel was uncovered within the remains of a low lying mound and it is suggested that it may have originally been an upstanding earthwork likely to be a Bronze Age round barrow or burial mound."
