People urged to attend public meeting about pylon plans

People affected by proposals that could see powerlines being carried through Shropshire and Powys are being urged to attend a public meeting in Oswestry on Friday 28 September 2012.

The meeting will take place at The Venue, Park Hall, Oswestry, at 6pm and has been organised by the Leader of Shropshire Council, Keith Barrow.

MPs Bill Cash, Glyn Davies, and Owen Paterson, the new Secretary of State for environment, are due to be at the meeting, and all local interest groups from both sides of the border are invited to attend.

Anyone unable to attend will be able to watch the meeting live on the Internet on Shropshire Council’s ustream channel – at
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shropshire-council.

National Grid has announced that electricity cables connecting wind farms in Mid Wales to the electricity network are set to pass through Shropshire, from a new substation at Cefn Coch in Powys to join the existing 400kv network at Lower Frankton.  Under this proposal, powerlines would enter Shropshire just south of Llanymynech Heritage Area and then be routed in a north easterly direction to Lower Frankton.

Councillor Keith Barrow said:

“I’m strongly opposed to any plans that would see pylons springing up across large areas of the Shropshire countryside because of the negative impact this would have on the landscape, on local communities, and on the county’s economy. I urge all like-minded people living in the area to come to this meeting, and help us to demonstrate to National Grid the strength of feeling against these proposals.”

The four Shropshire Councillors who represent the electoral divisions on the preferred route have launched a campaign to prevent the cables being carried overground on pylons, and they are also eager for people to attend the public meeting.

In a joint statement, councillors Arthur Walpole (Llanymynech division), Joyce Barrow (St Oswald), Steve Charmley (Whittington), and Aggie Caesar-Homden (Ruyton and Baschurch), said:

“We’re all extremely concerned about the prospect of powerlines being carried through Shropshire on pylons and we’re determined that, if the lines do pass through our areas, they are carried underground.

“It’s really important that we all – councillors and local people – let National Grid know what we think about their proposals, so we urge everyone living in the affected areas to come along to this meeting to find out more and, more importantly, to let us know what they think.

“People can also contact us by email, phone, post or in person. We’ve also set up a Facebook page – called ‘Shropshire against pylons’ – on which people can leave us questions and comments.”

In its official response to National Grid’s public consultation in June 2011, Shropshire Council recognised that National Grid is required to connect new windfarms to the network but said that the council would object to any overhead line solution, which it considered to be significantly detrimental to the county’s visitor economy.

Once National Grid’s planning application is ready, it will be submitted to the National Infrastructure Directorate and Shropshire Council will be invited to submit its formal response to the application, as a statutory consultee.