[Politics] Give cash to households in path of new pylons, government urged

[FRIDAY THE 13]

Households should be given cash if they live in the path of new large electricity pylons, a government-commissioned report says.

The recommendation is among several to speed up the building of new infrastructure in Great Britain to better connect with new renewable energy.

Key is a fast-track planning system to help halve the 12 to 14 years it currently takes to build new lines.

The government has welcomed the report.

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Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps will now consider the recommendations and is expected to present a plan later this year.

However, the construction of new lines could open fresh rifts with Conservative MPs campaigning against planned pylons in their area.

Environment Secretary Therese Coffey and former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel are among high-profile MPs opposing plans for new lines affecting their constituencies.

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The government ordered the review in July last year as part of plans to improve the transmission of renewable energy, including from wind farms and new nuclear stations, to homes and businesses.

The report, by energy industry veteran Nick Winser, said the push to decarbonise was being held back by the slow pace of new pylon projects.

It has recommended a streamlined planning process as part of plans to reduce the time it takes to around seven years, and closer alignment between planning rules in Scotland and the separate system for England and Wales.

It said people living near transmission pylons, the larger lines that connect electricity from where it is generated to regional substations, should get lump sum payments from operators.

The report does not recommend specific levels of compensation or qualification criteria. It says a further consultation may be needed to work out a formula, which would need to be approved by the energy watchdog Ofgem.

'Pay off communities'
It also supported community payments for areas where new "visible infrastructure", including substations, is built, to pay for local programmes such as energy efficiency schemes or electric vehicle charging points.

The cost of compensation would be lower than building cables underground, it added, which it said was between five and 10 times more than overhead lines. Offshore cables were even more expensive, it noted.

But Rosie Pearson, founder of the Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk Pylons Action Group, said the idea of community payments was "very worrying".

"It sounds like they might be intending to essentially pay off communities with nominal sums instead of actually getting the right projects," she told the BBC

link: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66397256