Consultation over new pylons a "sham"

National Grid has come under renewed pressure to scrap its “sham” consultation over controversial 400,000 volt overhead power lines, and start again.

Residents living along the route have accused the energy giant of backtracking about why it is apparently not even considering burying the cables under the sea.

Somerset County Council is the latest, and biggest, authority to condemn the consultation process for the line which would see 160ft high pylons carrying power 37 miles from a new Hinkley Point power station to a sub station at Avonmouth, near Bristol.

Communities along the route and local MPs are fighting the pylons, which they say will ruin views and threaten livelihoods in an area highly dependent on tourism.

 They are angry they have only been offered one “choice” – an above-ground route – and want to know why a sub-sea or underground cabling has been ruled out. Without the facts, they say there can be no true consultation.

National Grid is looking at a series of options along two route corridors. It says it can discuss putting some of the cabling underground once a preferred route has been identified but that putting all the cabling underground, or taking an undersea route along the Bristol Channel, is unfeasible.

Protesters say National Grid at first said the cost of a sea route would be prohibitive, but the energy giant now says it does not have the technology.

 In December, National Grid said it would cost £1.9 billion for the sub-sea route, but campaigners say they can’t understand that cost given a much longer route between Kent and the Netherlands under construction at the moment costs about £500 million.

 A full meeting of the county council this week condemned the first round of consultation as being “fundamentally flawed”.

 The council is calling on the Secretary of State for Climate Change, the Infrastructure Planning Committee, and National Grid to ensure that a new and “fully informed” consultation takes place before any decision on the route is made, and before detailed proposals are submitted to the IPC.

A motion proposed by county council Liberal Democrat group leader Jill Shortland, and seconded by environment portfolio holder Anthony Trollope-Bellew, said the proposals were also premature because consultations on national energy infrastructure policy is not yet complete.

 Campaigners and councillors are also critical of the timing.

Route options include decommissioning the existing 132,000-volt overhead electricity line, which runs parallel to the M5 between Bridgwater and Avonmouth, and adopting the same route for the new 400,000-volt line. The second is to construct a line parallel to the existing one. Another option is a new power line to the east.

Cllr David Huxtable said: “I think we are all agreed that the consultation is a bit of a sham. We want them to open up consultations to talk about other options, but the council is in favour of a new nuclear power station. I’d encourage people to vote Conservative because the planning system would be changed to put a Minister in charge, not the IPC.”

A National Grid spokeswoman said yesterday: “This was only the first phase of consultation. It went on for 14 weeks, two weeks longer than originally planned, because of the severe weather. We wrote to 38,000 households along the route and held 17 exhibitions at approximately every six kilometres and information was also sent to libraries and council offices.

“There will be more consultation when a preferred route is put forward. We have had feedback from all methods, by email, via the helpline, from people who went to the exhibitions.

“In phase two we can talk about sections going underground but it wouldn’t be realistic for all to be underground. The technology for a sub-sea system integrating into the network is not tried and tested.”