With Britain embarking on an ambitious plan to upgrade its electricity grid, residents in a quiet corner of the southeast England have found themselves at the forefront of a battle against what they see as the encroachment of 50-metre-tall pylons. The UK government sees as crucial in hitting its targets of net zero emissions and improved energy security.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00♪♪
00:10♪♪
00:30♪♪
00:43The farmyard is to my left, and that's slightly off the centre of the farm,
00:47and the pylon route will be coming from the main road,
00:50the whole road will be coming from the main road right through the middle of the farm,
00:53and it's probably, if you dissect the farm, probably in half.
00:56I had long-term visions of staying here for my retirement and my family running the farm,
01:01but can I live here with pylons and the noise they may make?
01:04Probably not.
01:06So your guess is as good as mine.
01:08♪♪
01:30Our grid has served us well,
01:33but is based on the coal-fired powered stations of the North and the Midlands,
01:38which are now closed.
01:40Our electricity's been generating now from different sources,
01:44offshore wind, more renewables, coastal nuclear.
01:48What we require effectively is the rewiring of Britain,
01:52and therefore we need to build new grid lines across England and Wales
01:57in order to make sure that we have that reliable grid,
02:00that we are accessing cleaner, greener electricity,
02:04and that we're also delivering energy security as well.
02:08♪♪
02:21We need to see an offshore grid.
02:23They're doing this on the other side of the North Sea.
02:25The Dutch are doing it, the Germans, the Danes and the Belgians.
02:28They're creating an offshore grid to keep the power offshore.
02:31Or we need to see it buried if it comes onshore in England,
02:34and there's ways of doing that which are much cheaper nowadays than the olden days.
02:38So we want to see it either buried or offshore,
02:40and we want to see the existing grid upgraded using all the most modern technology
02:45so that you don't have to build new pylons as often.
02:48♪♪