Stop the Pylons - Minister hears from campaigners and local councillors

On February 2nd, Sir Bernard Jenkin, MP for Harwich and North East Essex, brought Graham Stuart, MP, Minister for Energy and Climate, and Zac Richardson, Director of New Infrastructure at National Grid (NG), to Essex to hear from campaigners and local councillors about our objections to NG’s proposed East Anglia Green pylons and associated substations across Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk. After visiting Dedham and the location for the proposed substations in Ardleigh, they held a round table discussion in Lawford with representatives from the DVS, the Pylons East Anglia and Stour Valley Underground campaign and local councillors.

Graham Stuart was in listening mode and acknowledged that there are options to do things better bringing offshore electricity from windfarms onshore. He has set aside funds to look into this, looking forward to 2050, not just to 2030. This demonstrated that the Pylons campaigns are having an effect, although there is much work still to be done to reverse NG’s proposals and make the Offshore Grid a reality. We are very grateful to Sir Bernard for making this meeting possible and to Rosie Pearson of the Pylons campaign and the society’s Luke Marshall for the strong cases they made to the group.   BBC’s Look East programme on February 2nd led with this story, which is available on iPlayer.