Plans to erect giant electricity pylons threaten British countryside

Most Britons cherish our precious green and pleasant land. When we gaze at the countryside, be it rolling hills, wetlands, forests or fens, we are momentarily transported back to an agrarian age, free of concrete and steel intrusions. 

A world away from urban ubiquity. Necessarily there is a need for the infrastructure which supports town and city life. 

Much of this, regrettably, travels through previously unspoilt countryside. 

There are over 4,300 miles of overhead electricity lines in England and Wales – most of them located in rural areas.

Shockingly, there are currently proposals to add yet more electricity pylons, on an even bigger scale, in East Anglia and in Lincolnshire, where my constituency is located.

This is no small matter – the pylons are over 160 ft tall and will cover a 110 mile stretch of the countryside.

In Lincolnshire, pylons would run straight through the flat, unspoilt landscape – the blight on the environment being all the more jarring because of the clash with the Fenland topography.

This is the area from which much of the food that feeds Britain originates, and the continued success of its farmers and growers is vital for national food security. 

The country’s coast is hugely significant for protected bird habitats and other wildlife, the survival of which are threatened by industrial development.

Rural communities did not ask for giant steel structures to be erected near to homes and farms; worse still, they have little power to stop them being built. 

A previous Conservative Government, of which I was part, wisely gave local communities greater powers to stop intrusive onshore wind turbines they did not want. 

Now the same must be done to prevent the blight of these immense electricity pylons.

From discussions with local residents it is not clear to me what assessment there has been of the impact of this incursion on the natural environment. 

A desire to meet top-down centrally driven targets because of their importance is no excuse for the destruction of natural beauty. 

As T.S. Eliot said, “half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.” 

As advances in technology allow for greater development of a grid offshore, it is obvious that undersea cables are the best way of carrying power to where it’s needed, so sparing the eastern English countryside. 

Our landscape is precious precisely because it could pass for what Constable and Turner painted two hundred years ago.

We owe those from whom we inherited our landscape and those yet to be born not to destroy it.