Shropshire Star

£18 million Shropshire power line upgrade plans are submitted

An £18 million project to improve the electricity supply in north Shropshire has moved one step closer after a planning application was formally submitted for the scheme.

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The wooden pole power line will cross Shropshire countryside

The Planning Inspectorate will now consider the plans to develop a new 132,000 volt wooden pole overhead line between Oswestry and Wem.

The project, which is hoped to be completed by 2022, will help to attract future business and housing investment across the region up to and beyond 2036.

A lack of power in the area has previously been blamed for job losses and the relocation of businesses.

Following two years of design work and consultation with the local community, a Development Consent Order (DCO) has been lodged with the Planning Inspectorate by SP Energy Networks.

The North Shropshire Reinforcement Project will see a new wood-pole electricity line run from Oswestry substation, located at the A5/A495 roundabout, to Wem substation, located on Ellesmere Road on the western side of Wem.

Investments like this are also critical to enable the electricity grid to be prepared for future innovations, such as the expected increase in electric vehicles and their chargers, SP Energy Networks said.

Important

Mark Sobczak, of SP Energy Networks, said: “For two years we have been carefully shaping our plans for this very important upgrade project.

"We have consulted with hundreds of residents and business owners, and carried out detailed environmental and technical studies. Our proposals will significantly boost the capacity of the electricity network in north Shropshire, helping to support major economic developments in the area for decades to come.

"All of the information we received during the consultations helped to shape our final plans, and we would like to thank everyone who took the time to provide feedback.”

It is anticipated that the Planning Inspectorate, which makes decisions over major infrastructure schemes, will make a decision on the plans by summer 2020.

If approved, the company would seek to begin construction of the overhead line latterly in 2020 and into 2021, with project completion expected by summer 2022.

SP Energy Networks said the new 132,000-volt wooden pole line is the most appropriate solution after investigating a number of options for reinforcing the network.

It plans to build the new overhead line using a wood pole Trident design – a design which it said is a tried and tested, constructed most recently for reinforcing the electricity distribution network between Legacy substation and Oswestry substation.