Power line campaigners fear the worst......

CAMPAIGNERS fighting plans to erect a new overhead powerline across North Somerset's green fields say they fear the worst - after news a similar scheme in Suffolk is to go ahead. National Grid announced this week it is to go ahead and build a 4,000 volt line with 160ft towering pylons across the Suffolk countryside between Bramford, near Ipswich, and Twinstead Tee, south of Sudbury. The move comes despite a large campaign - similar to the one launched in North Somerset - where residents and councillors called for the cables to go underground. The energy giant launched a consultation when the plans were first announced, with 3,000 local residents along the route responding. Despite calls to put the cables underground to protect the countryside, National Grid has announced the majority of the Suffolk scheme will be overground pylons, with only some of the route going underground. National Grid also wants to create a new overhead 400,000 volt power line from Bridgwater to Avonmouth to bring electricity from the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point on to its transmission network. The power giant is looking at a series of options, along two 'route corridors', considering whether to decommission the existing 132,000 volt line and adopt the same route for the new line or build a new line along the second route. The line - complete with towering 160ft pylons - would cut through swathes of the North Somerset countryside and slice through the Mendip Hills Area of Natural Beauty, green belt and nature reserves. An announcement on the preferred route is expected later this summer. National Grid has been consulting with residents, parish councils and action groups along the route of the proposed lines and has also been reviewing its undergrounding policy. Campaigners say the energy giant needs to put the cables underground or look at a subsea route along the Severn Estuary. But National Grid has said that laying the line along the sea bed would be too costly and posed serious technical problems. It said the cost of putting the cables under the sea would be an estimated £1.9 million compared to the estimated £656 million cost of putting the cables over ground Campaigners are now urging local residents to write again to their MP and local councillors following the Suffolk decision, reiterating their concerns about the overhead pylon scheme. Chairman of the Nailsea Action Group, set up to fight the power line proposals, Keith Edwards, said people must act now. Mr Edwards said: "Earlier this month the people of Suffolk received some very bad news, that National Grid announced it will go ahead and build its 400kv overhead 160ft high pylons rather than the more acceptable undersea/underground line. "Although they offered little proof, National Grid said it had listened to the 3,000 residents who responded to their consultation. "In the next few weeks it will be the turn of the 8,000 local residents who responded to the National Grid survey in North Somerset, to be ignored and walked all over. "We need people to contact their local councillors and their MP to make sure they know how they feel about this monstrous plan. "Only by doing this can we stop this madness once and for all. "It seems strange and disturbing that the UK appears to have adopted a system in which the residents say no, the environmentalists say no and even the MPs say no, but still a multinational corporation can do what it wants, when it wants, simply because it has decided to put short term expediency before quality of life."