News in Brief
National Grid's Undergrounding Announcement
National Grid have, on Tuesday 29th May 2012 announced that they intend to underground2.5 miles of their proposed new transmission system acrossthe Stour Valleyaspart of the Bramford to Twinstead Connection Project.
They also propose to underground the Dedham Vale AONB which when taken together with the removal of the 132kv line will yield an important improvement in the visual amenity of the AONB.
This is an important step but is far from the end of the story.
Going forward,weat the western end of the consultation areawill need to fight strenuously to extend the undergrounding across the high ground between the AONB and the Suffolk side of the Stour Valley. More locally, we are pressing for alterations to the proposed underground cable route as it joins the line going south toward Braintree in order to yield maximum environmental benefit without causing any significant increase in cost.
Also important locally, we will build on this announcement to fight proposals for a substation west of the Twinstead Tee.
These proposals and decisions are laid out in National Grid’s Connection Options Report which is available from this website as is the Stour Valley Underground response to it. In our response we provide evidence of the flawed nature of the evidence and thinking behind National Grid’s decisions. In keeping with our ethos throughout this consultation, we provide better solution along with supporting evidence.
On the 10th July, UK Power Networks released its report presenting its need case for a new substation near Twinstead. This is seen as a technical report to inform the National Grid project. Stour Valley Underground have also responded to this and again have researched and come forward with more environmentally acceptable solutions that are economic and appropriate to our high value landscapes.
We will also continue to campaign for the the removal of ALL redundant pylons along the 132kv line that are made redundent by the project.
Stour Valley Underground see NG’s decision as a platform on which to build the best solution for everyone across the consultation area. We see the widely held objective of extending the AONB to include all of the painters landscapes (Gainsborough, Constable and Nash, to name a few) as extremely valuable for the area and an umbrella objective that all of our on going work as outlined above will serve.
We have shown that we can impact the thinking of the electricity industry and we must now make strenuous efforts to press our strong case for total undergrounding of the Bramford to Twinstead Connection and an underground cable alternative to a substation. Our solutions are economic in the widest sense of the word, robust and very low in environmental impact when compared to national Grid’s proposals.
Stour Valley Underground will continue to work assiduously to achieve the objectives ofallin the Amenity Group Coalition of Suffolk and Essex.
We hope therefore that you will continue to support our efforts in the fight to come, knowing that together, we can make a difference.
