‘There’ll be no countryside left’: Opposition to pylons puts UK carbon targets at risk

Tucked away beyond the industrial landscapes of north-east Derbyshire and the M1 corridor, the Amber Valley is an oasis of greenery: ancient trees, listed buildings and public footpaths that are increasingly popular with tourists.

But Katie Hirst, a local resident, fears that appreciative visitors will vanish along with the unspoilt landscape if a route of 50-metre-high pylons is brought down the valley as National Grid intends.

“People come here for wonderful walks and the unspoilt landscape, and that would be gone, and the economy would really suffer,” said Hirst, a co-founder of Save Amber Valley Environment (Save), one of a growing number of grassroots groups opposed to pylon schemes across the country.

According to Hirst, farmers in the Amber Valley have diversified into tourism and visitors to these Peak District fringes increasingly support local jobs for young people.

“It’s terrifying, to be honest,” she said. “It feels like the government has got this 2030 deadline and that’s all that matters.

“Covid taught everybody how much these open green spaces are needed. If this carries on, there’ll be no countryside left. Where will people come and allow their mental health to recover?”

More than 600,000km of power lines will have to be unrolled across the UK over the next few years for the country to properly decarbonise. But the pylons and the renewable infrastructure that will carry them are already causing anxiety and resistance.

There were forceful statements from Keir Starmer last week, saying he would take the “tough decisions” necessary to get pylons built. The next day Ed Miliband was a little more emollient , promising to consider benefits for communities affected by the construction of renewable energy infrastructure, and community ownership of the assets, which could include onshore windfarms and solar farms.

So how is this going to work? For the government to meet the ambitious target of decarbonising electricity generation by 2030, new infrastructure – including wind turbines, on and offshore; solar farms; and new transmission systems such as pylons – will be essential.

But the other parliamentary parties either oppose pylons, or allow MPs in certain constituencies to oppose them. Local groups in some areas are also organising.

Adrian Ramsay, the co-leader of the Green party, used his first day in parliament to call for a pause on plans for a route of 520 pylons passing through his Waveney Valley constituency in Norfolk . He said: “There’s a controversial proposal where there’s huge local concern about the impact on agricultural land, on traffic, on local communities, on the landscape. So what I’m arguing for is a pause while the other options are considered, because of course we need the infrastructure; it’s a matter of doing it in the right way that has a long-term benefit.”

The Labour party says it can meet its ambition of being a “clean energy superpower” only by building the new infrastructure necessary. The decarbonising electricity target is likely to require a doubling of onshore wind capacity, a quadrupling of offshore wind and a tripling of solar power by 2030. This will require what transmission companies have described as a “colossal” investment in power grid upgrades, which will cost billions of pounds and is likely to make the country’s electricity infrastructure more visible than ever before.

The UK will need to install five times as many pylons and underground lines in the six years to 2030 as it has in the past 30 years – and four times more undersea cables than there are now, according to estimates from National Grid. Existing pylons and ageing cables will also need to be replaced. More than 600,000km of lines will need to be added or replaced by 2040 based on the age of existing transmission and distribution lines, the rollout of renewables and growing electricity demand, according to data from the International Energy Agency. This means cables will need to be rolled out at a pace of almost 100km every day for 17 years.

The cost will be tremendous. Keith Anderson, the chief executive of Scottish Power, which also runs transmission cables and power grids, has estimated that for every pound invested in clean electricity generation, the UK will need to spend another pound on building the pylons, transmission cables and substations to carry this green energy to homes and businesses across the country.

Many of the pylon routes are likely to be through East Anglia, given that the developments of offshore wind are focusing on the North Sea, and that is where the biggest protests have been concentrated. But pylons will be needed to some extent throughout the country, to connect onshore wind and solar farms, and to replace older infrastructure.

The main alternative to pylons is to bury cables. A decade-old study cited frequently by the previous government found this would be about 10 times more expensive than overhead lines. But people campaigning against pylons claim undergrounding is significantly cheaper than it used to be, thanks to new high-voltage direct current (HVDC) subterranean cables, which the National Grid is using on some UK schemes and which are being rolled out across Germany. Two recent studies by the National Grid ESO suggest that the lifetime costs of HVDC undergrounding could be better economic value in the long term than pylons on some schemes, though it would still cost more upfront. Building an offshore grid is another alternative but this, too, carries substantial upfront and environmental costs.

Campaigners in some of the most affected constituencies are galvanising resistance to pylons. Nearly 37,000 people have signed a petition against the 114-mile pylon route from Norwich to Tilbury , which National Grid says is needed to bring electricity from offshore windfarms to London.

Richard Rout , the deputy cabinet member for nationally significant infrastructure projects for Suffolk county council, said: “The vast scale of change necessary for the new government to reach its [2030] goal is such that we are sitting on the cusp of what is almost a mini Industrial Revolution. I don’t think people are quite prepared for that, neither politicians nor communities.”

He added: “People living next to transmission infrastructure – substations and pylon runs – are paying the price without seeing any of the benefits. That sense of injustice is going to make what are laudable goals unachievable.”

A resident of Snow Street in Norfolk, which is crossed by the proposed pylon route, said: “What hasn’t been taken into account is the massive effect this is having on people’s mental health and quality of life expectations. People around here are absolutely terrified of it. It’s not simply an inconvenience, it’s a genuine fear of something that’s going to ruin their lives.”

There are ways for Labour to minimise the disruption and emphasise the benefits to local communities, by focusing on energy bill reductions and the need to tackle the climate crisis. Under the last government, there was a lack of central planning for renewable energy, and projects were brought to the National Grid individually and piecemeal. A coordinated approach could mean better planning for infrastructure, and pylon routes rationalised. This, along with a potential programme of benefits for local communities , could go some way to appeasing the opposition.

Some within the party favour a more robust approach . Boosting renewable energy is key to Labour’s plan to reduce the cost of living , they argue, and more homegrown energy will bring down bills, create jobs and help meet the UK’s carbon targets. Opposing pylons, in this view, is nimbyism that will keep costs high for vulnerable people, and damage the climate.

Alistair Strathern, the Labour MP for Hitchin, said: “This kind of climate delivery denialism is more subtle than what we have seen from the Tories in recent years but it is no less damaging than what the Tories have done in delaying climate measures . We know that if we are going to meet our climate commitments and deliver energy security we need to move at speed and deliver it in a way that is economically viable and feasible.”

Alex Sobel, a Labour MP and former shadow environment minister, added: “People may not like how electricity transmission infrastructure looks but the scale of challenge requires we build it. Any party who argues for delay is not a party serious about climate change.”

Stuart Dossett, a senior policy adviser at the Green Alliance thinktank, said Miliband, was right to put securing energy independence at the top of his list of priorities. Dossett said: “People have genuine concerns whether their voices are heard in planning process. We have to make sure the energy transition offers communities tangible benefits. But climate change is the number one threat to nature. We need to build fast and take people us, with our political leaders brokering the deals that make this possible.”