Compensation for pylons 'doesn't make up for spoiling countryside' in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk

  • Hannah Pettifer spoke to campaigners against the Norwich-to-Tilbury network


A resident says financial compensation is not enough for people affected by plans to install 112-miles of overhead electricity lines and pylons.

It comes as a report recommended payments should be offered to people to quell local opposition to the Norwich to Tilbury network - which spans across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.

The report commissioned by the government said projects to build new lines keep getting held up, meaning a risk that wind farms and nuclear sites could be sitting idle without enough cables to take the energy to homes and businesses.

Charlotte Banks, who lives in Stowmarket in Suffolk, said if the plans were to go ahead, she would see three pylons from her house - the closest just 200 metres away.

She said: "I don't think community payments or compensation necessarily make up for the wrong decision because what we should be looking at is an offshore grid so that we are not spoiling this part of the countryside.

"You can't impose things on communities against their will. We don't want this. It's not a question of not in my backyard, it's a question of not in anybody's backyard. So put it offshore."

Farmer John Stacey Credit: ITV News Anglia

John Stacey has farmed his land just outside Witham in Essex for the past 35 years, and said his main concern was that the planned Norwich to Tilbury pylon network that would cut right through his land.

He said: "So long as the plan is fair and compensation is paid to the people affected that's great but there's no compensation being paid at present apart from people like myself who are compulsorily purchased.

"So our neighbour to my left who is a listed building, he'll get no compensation at all. His property value will be affected."

The report by electricity networks commissioner Nick Winser explains any delays will have a big impact as it already takes 12 to 14 years to get new big transmission lines up and running.

One of the trade-offs for the energy that wind and solar farms can provide is that they are often smaller scale, rather than being one large power plant.

This means the grid needs to pull lots of smaller cables to many different power generation sites across the country, rather than enormous cables to few big coal plants.

Yet very few transmission lines have been built over the last 30 years.

To meet the government's net zero target, the report said delivery times need to be halved from 14 years to seven.

The government said it would consider the report before deciding upon a course of action.

Energy security and net zero minister Grant Shapps said it was important to reform the UK's energy system "to drive down bills, grow the economy and ensure tyrants like Putin can never again use energy as a weapon of war".


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