visual amenity

I went to Cleethorpes at the weekend. To give my old Goldie Rosie, perhaps her last run on the beach (a sad story for another time). The sea scene was full of boats and people – like distant ants – assembling a forest of wind turbines – setting out a new industrial landscape. It seems to me in the light of this that we have strange double standards in the context of this story of the use of £500million of public money to “re-wild” a landscape. The story tells us:

Overhead power lines will be replaced by underground cables in parts of the New Forest, the Peak District, Snowdonia and Dorset.

The National Grid has set aside £500m for the project.

Environmentalist Chris Baines, who helped select the locations, said it had been a “difficult decision”.

The four schemes have been prioritised out of 12 sections of electricity lines in eight national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) across England and Wales which were considered to have the most significant impact on beauty spots.

The four stretches of lines which have been prioritised are in:

• Dorset AONB, near Winterbourne Abbas
• New Forest National Park, near Hale
• Peak District National Park, near Dunford Bridge
• Snowdonia National Park, near Porthmadog