Council chiefs will tell National Grid bosses that building huge pylons through Shropshire to connect windfarms in Mid Wales to the national electricity network would be “totally unacceptable”.

Members of Shropshire Council’s cabinet agreed yesterday to register the council’s objections to the controversial plans which have already sparked a huge public outcry.

They say the power cables would damage the county’s tourism.

And they will also tell National Grid that if it insists in running the cables through Shropshire, they must be underground.

National Grid is planning a substation to collect windfarm energy and a 400,000 volt transmission link.

The organisation is currently carrying out the first stage of a public consultation into how this will be done and Shropshire Council is one of the consultees.

Several potential routes have been suggested for the pylon line.

People wanting to comment on plans to build an overhead power line have only until Monday to do so.

National Grid today urged more residents to fill in feedback forms giving their views on the project and said it had received 2,500 out of more than 10,000 forms given out.

Council Leader Keith Barrow told yesterday’s council meeting the communities of Shropshire were against the plans wherever they went.

He said: “I think Government policy is ill thought out. Windfarms per se are not the way forward. It is not just about the impact of the pylons, it is about these things that will travel through Shropshire for the next five years on our roads taking the equipment.

“I think the National Grid consultation document is very poor as it puts one community against the other. It almost encourages people to say ‘we don’t want it, but stick it in his patch’.”

Councillor Arthur Walpole, for Llanymynech, said he was worried how the A483 route would cope with huge transport trucks taking pylon and windfarm equipment to Mid Wales.

By Iain St John