No Pylons Lincolnshire call for a pause and rethink of large scale plans that they are fighting
With the new Government placing a greater emphasis on energy and its infrastructure, people protesting against the pylons have shared just why they think it is a bad idea.
The National Grid has been running a consultation on a £1.07 billion project to lay 420 pylons across an 87-mile stretch between Grimsby and Walpole, near King’s Lynn, to bring in power from off-shore windfarms as part of a major infrastructure upgrade.
However this plan — which involves passing through South Holland — has created some uproar among protestors, who feel that the impact on the county does not outweigh any benefits.
Homegrown green energy has been placed as a top priority for the new Government, which wants to move away from fossil fuels for environmental and economic reasons.
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “Our mission is for clean power by 2030, because getting clean, homegrown energy is the way to bring greater energy independence.
“Securing Britain's clean energy future requires improving outdated infrastructure to get renewable electricity on the grid and unleash its true potential. “It is also important we listen to people’s concerns, and where communities live near clean energy infrastructure, they should benefit directly from it.”
Here Andrew Malkin, of protest group No Pylons Lincolnshire explains why this project is bad for the area and is calling for a pause and a re-think:
The Great Grid Upgrade and all its implications for Lincolnshire are massively complex.
And it's not just about upgrading the grid; it's also about the masses of new infrastructure that the upgrade is already attracting to our area.
It began with a map which dropped through letterboxes between Grimsby and Walpole early this year. A proposed 87-mile pylon route for new overhead power lines came as a surprise to most.
At first it seemed a ludicrous scheme - to bring renewable energy ashore at Grimsby from wind turbines in the North Sea and then cable on a minimum of 420 huge pylons on prime arable land all the way down the east of Lincolnshire to connect to the grid in Walpole, Norfolk.
Closer examination revealed this route was also to include no less than five new substations - some, such as the one planned for Weston Marsh, to occupy 40 acres, plus landscaping. They turn out to be the key to something much bigger.
Since then, in piecemeal fashion, more and more has been revealed - cables coming in offshore from more wind farms in the North Sea and Scotland, an additional overhead line to connect what will be the UK's biggest solar development, battery storage and even three new gas-fired power stations with add-on hydrogen generation.
That's what the five new substations are for - to enable grid connection points for 15 new private energy-generation projects, and counting.
Yes, the national grid (not to be confused with the contractors National Grid, a private for-profit company) does need upgrading.
For one thing part of your electricity bills pay private electricity generators not to generate electricity. That's because when more electricity is made than the grid can cope with, turbines are switched off, but the generating companies still get paid ‘curtailment fees’.
For another thing, if all current and proposed generating projects are added together we would produce up to ten times the amount of electricity the UK can use. That's a margin to allow for potential increase in demand for electric vehicles and heating way in excess of what will be required.
It's our concern that the new harvest from Lincolnshire's top grade food-producing land is to be electricity for sale abroad.
Precious little of any of this new electricity being made in Lincolnshire, or flooding into the county is actually required here. Even National Grid has admitted the county is to be a new "spinal" route for grid transmission to other areas.
In some areas, such as South Holland, council leaders have claimed a lack of local transmission investment is holding up development, but agree that it will not be assisted by the national grid upgrade, which will bypass the district. And business rates for the proposed new national infrastructure will not land in the areas most affected by it.
Our energy bills may not rise as quickly, but it’s more than likely any savings will be offset by increased food prices, because land currently used for growing food will be used for energy infrastructure - meaning we will have to import more expensive food to feed ourselves.
In all approximately 25,000 acres of prime agricultural land will be covered by these industrial installations.
Construction will take years and involve disruption as haul roads are built to access sites and traffic is disrupted by heavy haulage movement on local roads, many not fit for such use.
Trees and hedges in the way will be ripped out, ditches will be filled in to accommodate the width or weight of the vehicles.
There is no win-win; it's all lose-lose.
From the outset National Grid has gone for its claimed cheapest option – pylons. Its earlier public consultation focused only on the corridor through Lincolnshire that it had chosen for pylons, discounting alternatives such as undersea or underground. That public consultation, accompanied by much publicity from National Grid for the public to engage, which you did, ended on March 13. The results have still not been declared, despite repeated requests.
But how cheap is cheap? No one can say for sure. National Grid has only, so far, given a figure for constructing the overhead line, but has not included other costs to be met, such as compensation paid to landowners, continuing payments for use of their land, sweeteners to be paid to affected communities and the cost of environmental damage and impact. Public projects must include these costs under what are known as Treasury Green Book rules. National Grid has refused point blank to meet these requirements because it says, as a private company, it doesn’t have to. But this IS a public project, to be paid for, in full, by the public. And there is also the carbon footprint associated with construction of at least 420 50-metre-high steel pylons made who-knows-where – China?
Pylons will be a blight on the countryside which will outlive us and our children.
Pylons are the price of a knee-jerk response to an ill-thought-out rush to try to achieve net-zero in an unachievable time frame.
Pylons are the price of using antiquated infrastructure to save literally pennies a day when costed over the life of the pylons shared between the nation's bill payers.
It makes no sense to ravage Lincolnshire for the next 80-plus years in the name of miniscule cost savings. It’s a crazy irony that the environment should be despoiled in the name of saving the environment by reducing our use of fossil fuels. Seeking carbon neutrality is laudable, but it can be achieved in a cleaner, greener, better way.
National Grid must meet requests to produce all the costings on other available delivery methods and follow Treasury Green Book rules. The projects should be paused and reviewed fully as a whole.
There is now a huge opportunity, and the time to make it happen, to design and build-in offshore integration to minimise onshore infrastructure that future generations will thank us for. Other forward-thinking nations are doing exactly this.
There is time, now that agreement has been reached with the Crown for an expansion of offshore generation, to have some serious joined-up thinking instead of the current piecemeal chaos being foisted on Lincolnshire.
Integration offshore would see cable coupling reducing landfall intrusion closer to the necessary points of delivery.
If HVDC (high voltage direct current) underground cables are used the cost difference over 40 to 60 years repayment compared with pylons is negligible.
Some things are worth paying for. In real terms using offshore technology and onshore cable ploughing will not be a cost too far.
It seems incredible that billions have been spent on HS2 to shave just a few minutes off journey times but those who want to preserve the countryside and protect quality arable land are bullied and portrayed as NIMBYs.
There are a number of apparent contradictions and anomalies for National Grid to address: If pylons will keep the bills down why is Lincolnshire getting some sub-sea cables which are then trenched underground? We have two already and a third coming soon, plus another three or four connecting to Grimsby to Walpole.
Also in the EGL (Eastern Green Link from offshore Scotland) 3 and 4 document HVDC underground cable is preferred to overhead.
What liaison with other NG projects, such as EGL 2 and 3, Outer Dowsing etc... has recently been carried out, to ascertain if infrastructure running along the same route could be carried out in tandem, therefore reducing the infrastructure needed in Lincolnshire?
Why have pylons been removed from areas in the UK, because they are deemed to be a blight on the landscape, while Lincolnshire is destined to have 87 miles of pylons in a flat landscape, where it will be impossible to mitigate?
Now is the time for a pause and a rethink and some clever joined-up thinking.
What do you think of the pylons? Good thing or bad thing? Send us your letters and comment below…
