National Grid confirms two hour glitch during Lincolnshire Pylon consultation
More than 4,000 people have had their say on a bid to create a line of pylons along the Lincolnshire coast – but bosses have admitted that a consultation form was unavailable for two hours on the final day.
National Grid closed its consultation last week on a proposal to put pylons over an 87-mile stretch of the county, running from Grimsby to Walpole in Norfolk, as it looks to overhaul its electricity transmission network.
Opposition to the plans have been voiced by residents in the No Pylons Lincolnshire protest group, senior councillors and Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones.
The National Grid says that it had received more than 4,500 responses within the consultation which will be used to create detailed proposals ahead of the next consultation in 2025 – and it has said that the online feedback form was not available for two hours on March 13.
A spokesperson for National Grid said: "We received a significant amount of feedback during our consultation. Every piece of feedback that was provided is now being carefully reviewed and analysed to help inform the further development of our proposals. We will publish further details on the level of feedback received, the key topics raised and our response to the feedback provided in due course.
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“Our consultation was open for eight weeks between Thursday 18 January and Wednesday 13 March 2024, throughout which time numerous channels were available for communities and stakeholders to provide their feedback, including by email, letter, and both hard copy and online versions of the feedback form.
“We are aware of a small technical glitch that resulted in the online feedback form being unavailable for around two hours on March 13, which was swiftly resolved. All other methods of providing feedback were available during this period.”
The grid says that 2,976 people attended 11 consultation events while a further 175 took part in eight webinars.
It also says that there were 4,500 responses prior to the closing of the consultation.
