New calls to put Shropshire and Mid Wales power lines link underground

Campaigners have called for action to be taken to preserve the Shropshire and Mid Wales countryside where the line would be carried by pylons.

National Grid has suggested a short section of the line would be underground before reaching the main network at Lower Frankton, near Ellesmere, but pylons will be used for most of the route.

It comes after eight national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty were placed on a shortlist of areas where power lines would run underground and pylons would be removed. The areas to be investigated by National Grid include Snowdonia, the Peak District and the Brecon Beacons.

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The new line in Mid Wales would run from a planned electricity sub-station at Cefn Coch near Welshpool to Lower Frankton, passing between Oswestry and Welshpool.

The line would run underground through part of the Meifod valley.

Clive Knowles, from the British Ironworks Company south of Oswestry, said he believed the entire length of the line should be underground.

He said: "We offered to facilitate the undergrounding of the electricity line across our land when the issue first came up but our offer was dismissed. We have a wonderful tourist attraction here at the British Ironworks and sculpture park and Shropshire is such a beautiful part of the country, all these lines should go underground.

"Profits should not come before the protection of the countryside."

Glyn Davies, MP for Montgomeryshire, said: "I am glad that National Grid has finally acknowledged how ugly these pylons are. These lines should all go underground."

The areas for pulling down pylons and putting the cables underground are in Snowdonia, Peak District, New Forest and Brecon Beacons national parks, and the Dorset, Tamar Valley, High Weald and North Wessex downs.

"Having decided these are the biggest and ugliest ones, we now have to look at the feasibility," said Chris Baines, an environmental consultant and chair of National Grid's stakeholder advisory group. "Undergrounding is best when you can do it, but we also have to make sure the treatment isn't worse than the disease. It can leave quite a scar that is hard to heal."

Putting lines underground requires a 50-metre-wide trench to be dug to about two metres deep, to accommodate the six lines carried by pylons. Hard rocks or archaeological sites can also present obstacles.