Plans which could see hundreds of on shore wind turbines and pylons built across Shropshire and Mid Wales were today condemned as “monstrous” by an MP.

Spearheading a debate at Westminster on the controversial National Grid proposals, Glyn Davies warned the blueprint posed a serious threat to the area’s tourism industry and was already causing serious damage with falling house prices.

The Montgomeryshire Tory MP argued Welsh windfarms had a load factor of just 19 per cent – the lowest recorded.

National Grid has been carrying out consultation to find a potential route for a 400,000 volt cable between planned windfarms and a proposed power station which could involve 46 metre high pylons.

A route has not yet been chosen for the line and National Grid has stressed no decision has been made about whether it would go under or overground.

But Mr Davies today claimed: “Our entire region – the beautiful land that is Mid Wales – is to be sacrificed at the altar of a false god.”

He said residents were “horrified” by the proposals and warned ministers – including the Welsh Assembly – that they would “fight to the last ditch” to save the region’s beautiful landscape from “wanton destruction”.

“I love the landmass that constitutes Mid Wales, and could contemplate living nowhere else on earth,” he said. “It is truly a place of great beauty. Beauty which underpins the most important and largest part of our local economy – tourism.

“The consequences of this proposal would be to totally destroy the place that we love by industrialising our uplands with wind turbines and desecrating our valleys with hideous cables and pylons.

“The proposals envisage the granting of permission for the erection of another 600 to 800 new onshore turbines in Mid Wales, a 20 acre electricity sub-station and about 100 miles of new cable, much of it carried on steel towers 150ft high. It is scarcely believable.”

Mr Davies said the plans had provoked “an uprising of anger and protest”.

By London Reporter Sunita Patel