Newtown set for pylons plan exhibition

Hundreds of people are set to attend an exhibition in Newtown tomorrow to discuss plans for a power station and hundreds of pylons in Shropshire and Mid Wales.

The National Grid exhibition will be held at the Monty Club in Newtown between 2pm and 8pm.

Bosses have been holding consultation events across Shropshire and Mid Wales to discuss routes for a 400,000 volt cable linking windfarms in Powys to the grid for the last few weeks.

The cable will go along 46-metre high pylons or be routed underground.

The plans include a power station being built in either Abermule, near Newtown, or Cefn Coch, near Llanfair Caereinion. A total of 48 public exhibitions are being held up until May, which will also include one at Llanfechain village Hall, near Oswestry on Thursday.

Councillor Joy Jones, the mayor of Newtown, urged as many people to attend as possible. "These proposals will be a major blight on the landscape, environment and people's lives" she said.

"People need to come and find out what is going on and make their views know before it's too late.

"We need as many people as possible to attend this exhibition and I really hope the Newtown exhibition gets as much support as possible.

"This is something that will ultimately affect the whole area and we need to stop it."

Councillor Jones said she also feared the proposals would make Newtown's traffic problem even worse.

She said: "Traffic through the town is already really bad and we just can't afford to let it get any worse.

"Motorists already face queues and I dread to think what will happen with the amount of extra traffic that will be created by building a substation and pylons."