Tourism fears over power pylons plan
Monday 20th June 2011, 11:16AM BST.
Shropshire’s tourist economy would be badly affected if huge pylons were allowed to be put up to carry a new power line across the countryside, campaigners have warned.
More than 200 people attended a public meeting with National Grid representatives in Oswestry on Saturday urging the company to instead put the electricity cables underground.
The meeting was called by north Shropshire MP Owen Paterson, who has now promised to contact Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones about comments he made over windfarms.
Mr Jones has said that there should be no more wind farms above the number agreed by the Welsh Assembly.
Many of those at Saturday’s meeting were worried about the affect of the electricity lines on Shropshire.
John Hemmings, from Melverley, said the county’s economy, its tourism and farming was at risk.
Alberto Morris, from Woolston near Oswestry, who has a tourism based business, said he was very concerned.
“National Grid needs to do much more detailed work on how this would affect Shropshire,” he said.
Jeremy Lee, for National Grid, said that the cost of underground cabling would be six or seven times higher than overground pylons. But he stressed no decision had yet been made.
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Over exaggeration again.
The tourist economies of North Yorkshire, East Anglia and the Highlands have not suffered as result of pylons there.
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Have you got a link to your reference material?
I tried a web search and could only find an article saying they were looking at undergrounding some of the North Yorkshire connection, as it had had an effect on the landscape/tourism.
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I suppose the recession has got nothing to do with it? I just wonder where they dream all the facts and figures up, probably somewhere like nimbyslocker.com
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Given that there is a recession, do you think they would be considering spending millions of pounds to remove pylons and bury the cable if they didn’t have good reason to believe it would make a difference?
Do you have a link to the evidence which suggests pylons don’t effect tourism?
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No, it wouldn’t.
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Irrespective of whether it damages tourism or not I do not wish my beautiful county having a string of pylons running through it. Recession or not, all these energy companies make more that enough money that they can afford to put the cables underground they just choose not too so as to protect their own and shareholders profits.
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