Lincolnshire County Council leader Martin Hill says it’s outrageous that National Grid won’t share cost comparisons about its plans to run chains of pylons through the Lincolnshire countryside.
He says requests from the Council have been blocked with a response which claims there is ‘very little benefit to be gained’ from sharing this information.
He said: “I think it’s outrageous that National Grid still refuses to present us with their workings and is hiding from a legitimate – and very reasonable – request for facts and figures. In their letter back to the council, they said they believe there is ‘very little benefit to be gained’ from sharing this information. I wholeheartedly disagree.”
He says the company is hiding detailed costings on cabling, and is demanding to know details about the planned Grimsby to Walpole pylon route to make sure that the other options – including placing cables on the seabed – had been properly considered.
National Grid has told the Council it doesn’t hold a central database of all the information, that it would take too long to pull the information together, and has labelled the request as unreasonable.
Councillor Hill added: “We’re not talking about a small proposal – these pylon plans will have a major impact on the east coast of Lincolnshire and we want to make sure these costs have been properly worked through.
“Residents have told us that they are concerned about Nationally Significant Infrastructure proposals like these, and believe that these pylons specifically will have negative impacts on our environment, tourism and the landscape. We have a duty to these residents to make sure we do what we can to protect their homes and livelihoods.
“We don’t deny that connectivity is important, but the infrastructure needs to be upgraded properly, and all views considered. We’re not going to give up on this; we’re going to keep trying to get some honesty and transparency. The campaign continues.”
Lincolnshire County Council will now look to revise and resubmit further questions to National Grid.
In a conducted by the county council 84% of residents said they were ‘concerned’ or ‘very concerned’ about the impact on the county caused by Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.
