Networks urged to avoid pylons in beauty spots

Transmission cables should be buried rather than carried on unsightly pylons through national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), the government has said in its new draft energy national policy statement (NPS).

The new NPS for electricity networks infrastructure, one of a swathe of energy planning documents published yesterday (6 September) by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) states that the government has changed its policy on whether cables should be undergrounded.

The NPS says the government’s position remains that overhead lines should continue to be the “strong starting presumption” for electricity networks developments except for areas covered by national landscape designations, like AONBs.

In these areas, and where harm to the landscape cannot feasibly be avoided by mitigation or re-routing, the default assumption will be that the developer should underground the relevant section of the line even though this is a more expensive option.

There will be exceptions to this requirement where it is “infeasible” in engineering terms or the harm the undergrounding causes, such as the size of the project’s construction footprint, is not outweighed by corresponding landscape and visual benefits.

The NPS says that minimisation of the landscape and visual impact of electricity networks is a “key” planning concern, which can be mitigated by the reconfiguring, rationalising or undergrounding of existing electricity assets.

Alongside the networks NPS, BEIS has also published new versions of these documents for natural gas and renewable energy generation as well as gas supply infrastructure.

The EN-6 NPS, which sets out the planning and consents regime for nuclear projects deployable before 2025 has not been updated, although a review is being carried out to develop a new document for the sector.

EN-2 has been updated to reflect the phase out of coal and oil-fired generation while stating that the natural gas will continue to play a “vital role” in the transition to net zero.

In addition, the NPS includes both energy from waste and biomass plants in its list of generation technologies which will be required in the future.

New guidance has also been added on pumped hydro storage (PHS), solar PV projects and co-ordinating offshore transmission for offshore wind projects.

An update of the energy NPS, which was published in 2011, was promised in last December’s energy white paper.