Dismay as work starts on £22m Shropshire and Mid Wales power line

Construction of the 132,000-volt, 16-mile power line from Legacy in Wrexham to Oswestry, will start this month – despite campaigners claiming the wooden pole line will ruin the region's natural beauty.

Officials at SP Energy Networks, which is building the line, say they will place 13 miles of cables overhead and three miles underground. It will be finished by next summer.

Critics say the line, which is being built to ensure the resilience of existing electricity supplies in Oswestry, Ellesmere, Welshpool and Newtown, should have been routed entirely underground. Councillor Ian Roberts, Wrexham County Borough Councillor for Chirk North, said: "I am very disappointed they are going ahead with this.

"It will ruin a beautiful area and I am disappointed they haven't put the whole thing underground."

Councillor Neil Graham, of St Martins Parish Council, said he was disappointed to hear the news.

He said: "I did my best and said my bit when the plans went in and I am disappointed it is going ahead. It will tarnish a beautiful part of the world and ruin its rural charm. I think it should follow the route of the A483 thus avoiding ruining more rural areas. It is a great shame that it will start."

Councillor Terry Evans, Wrexham County Borough councillor for Chirk South, said the work was a "great shame".

He said: "We let our feelings be known, but the secretary of state had his say and therefore it is coming. It is a great shame, it will not look nice, but I am told the wooden poles they are using are better to look at than the big metal ones.

"We are a big industrial area and we need the power and with that comes these works."

Permission for the line was granted last year following a three-week public inquiry in 2012. It came despite fears from councils on both sides of the border that the line would be detrimental to the countryside and tourism.

The underground section will be around Lower House Farm in Pen-y-Bryn, St Martins.

At the public inquiry, representatives of Wrexham Council, Chirk Town Council and St Martins Parish Council gave evidence against the plans, saying they wanted all or part of the line to be buried underground.

Mark Sobczak, programme manager for SP Energy Networks, said: "SP Energy Networks has developed a work programme that aims to not interrupt any supplies to customers during this work."