Harry Potter fans have succeeded in diverting a multi-million-pound power link between the UK and Ireland after complaining it would disturb a "memorial" to Dobby the House Elf, a character in the popular fantasy franchise.
The character was buried on Freshwater West beach in Wales in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Fans regularly leave stones inscribed with "Here lies Dobby" despite requests from the landowner, the National Trust, to stop due to the beach being an ecologically sensitive site.
The Greenlink interconnector project, which links the UK's National Grid to Ireland via a 200km cable, was initially planned to pass through the site of the "grave", according to project manager Simon Ludlam.
Speaking on the Energy Revolution podcast, Ludlam said his firm received "hundreds of calls" from fans after they became aware of the plans.
Ludlam admitted he had never heard of Dobby and was initially confused by the calls until a colleague alerted him to the situation.
“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?’” Ludlam recalled.
He said his colleague responded: “No, it’s very, very serious.”
The firm subsequently hired planners to reroute the cable around the fictional grave.
“A lot of people were very happy about that, and the project is now going [ahead] and Dobby’s happy,” Ludlam said.
“In the end, we went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby’s grave.”
The Bronze Age remains included burial urns.
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