Ellesmere mayor welcomes £18 million power line

Councillor Ryan Hartley, mayor of Ellesmere, has backed the upgrade which will see a new 132,000-volt overhead power line built between Oswestry and Wem.

Formal consultation on the next stage of the scheme begins this month.

Representatives from town and parish councils affected by the scheme have been invited to a meeting on November 22.

The upgrade will mostly benefit Oswestry, Wem and Whitchurch as well as surrounding villages.

But Councillor Hartley said: "Although the new line won't cross into our parish or come anywhere near us, it will come close enough to enhance the supply to the town.

"It will hopefully encourage new businesses to set and and enable them to have an adequate power supply.

"The meeting is for any councils affected by the new line."

Scottish Power Energy Networks, which is behind the work, said the next stage of consultation will allow communities and stakeholders to view the proposed project design and provide feedback.

The line will run between Oswestry substation, located at the A5/A495 roundabout, and the Wem substation, in Ellesmere Road, on the western side of the town.

It is hoped construction on the new line will start by 2020 and take about 12 months to complete.

The consultation phase will be followed by a formal application in 2018 for government consent for the route.

Paul Ferguson, a spokesman for SP Energy Networks, said: “We remain on programme to commence the next major milestone in the project which is our formal consultation this November, where we will invite local communities and stakeholders to view our proposed project design and provide feedback. The consultation will include local events and should is proposed to continue until early February.

“We would like to take this opportunity that ahead of the consultation, if anyone has not previously been in touch and would like to register an interest.”

Scottish Power Energy Networks said the new power line will provide additional capacity to support business investment and new residential developments across the region.

It said the new 132,000-volt wooden pole line is the most appropriate solution after investigating a number of options for reinforcing the network.

It plans to build the new overhead line using a wood pole Trident design – a design which it said is a tried and tested, constructed most recently for reinforcing the electricity distribution network between Legacy substation and Oswestry substation.