A series called NY-LON might have been on the TV this past while, but the PY-LON saga looks likely to run and run right through the coming winter in the Ochils and elsewhere. Robin Kelsall has written before about the threat from the metal monsters, and he now offers a further update.
I MAKE NO apologies for bringing you a further instalment in the saga of the Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) proposal to upgrade hugely the Beauly to Denny powerline. You may think it should be history by now but, in truth, each week seems to throw up a new twist or turn and I feel our readership should be kept abreast of these.
As you'll recall (see the lead story, Newsletter 25), the FotO committee responded to SSE's initial consultation by expressing total opposition to a proposed deviation from the existing line. This would have brought these enormous pylons striding down the exposed western flank of Dumyat on to the equally exposed carse just west of Blairlogie. Instead, we suggested that SSE should abide by the Holford Rule which states that any new line should, where possible, follow an existing one. (Remember Holford? Former Professor of Town Planning who formulated the principles for overhead transmission routeing in the late 1950s.) Eventually, the company acknowledged the responses - I think they were slightly taken aback by the sheer volume - and duly produced an interim report which incorporated changes to the route called for by the respondents. And lo! - gone was the deviation which had so unsettled FotO sensitivities; the proposed line was now to run alongside the present one.
End of story? Far from it. Many others had raised a host of objections to SSE's initial proposals, ranging from health anxieties through to loss of amenity, devaluation of property, desecration of views to and from historic and touristic icons, and so on. Having got what we wanted, we could hardly abandon the other protesters, so we're still in there. And then, consider this: have we got what we wanted? It's all very well to say that the new line will be on the route of the old and, therefore, that the bare hillside, formerly under threat, is safe; but we must not forget that these replacement pylons are colossal: the trees that go some way to soften the impact of the present 25-metre structures will do absolutely nothing to disguise things 45-50 metres high. They will dominate Sheriffmuir as they stride across the open ground (especially at the start of the hugely popular walk to Dumyat) before trundling down through Yellowcraig Wood and debouching on to the carse land at Logie. They will severely interfere with the view to the Wallace Monument from the flat land east of it and they will compromise that magical Ochils vista which gradually unfolds as you round the corner on the B998 just down from the entrance to Stirling University. And then there are the health concerns.
At a pretty fired-up meeting in the Allan Centre in Bridge of Allan on 7 July, the public was invited by SSE to pass comment on its interim report which incorporated the changes made to the original proposals. Despite having a panel of about half-a-dozen to respond to points and questions from the floor, when the issue of health was raised they had no one competent to deal with it and could offer no more than waffle or a shrug of the shoulders. What daftness: from the earlier written responses, they must have known this would come up. Anyway, those in the audience who had done their homework tore into them and, since my understanding of things scientific is just short of zilch, I can only parrot some of the points which were pretty forcefully made:
Recent research on the links between cancer/leukaemia and exposure to electromagnetic-fields (EMF) indicates a greater risk than previously thought. Since the publication in April 2001 of a report on EMF by the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), knowledge of the adverse effects of exposure to power frequency has advanced, eg -
Professor Henshaw, an international authority on the effects of EMF, has suggested that no house should be closer than 400 metres to a high-voltage power line (remember, this line is to be 400,000 volts: they don't come any higher) and quite a few buildings in the area are very much closer than that.
So, what about going underground? Actually, this found favour with neither side: hugely expensive and fraught with environmental issues, said SSE; little improvement in EMF levels unless placed far underground, said the health activists. What's left, then? Well, there's always route d1 (west of Stirling) and, at one point in the meeting, a rather exasperated Dr Keith MacLean, SSE's heid man in the consultation exercise, urged us all to call for a re-examination of d1 in our written responses to the interim report. This has been done and, for the moment, we'll just have to hope and wait for the next stage. In October, SSE will lodge its final plan with the Scottish Executive, which will then seek an opinion from Stirling Council. Should the latter raise no objections if SSE has plumped for d2, we've had it. If on the other hand they object, it goes to a public inquiry and at least we've got a chance.
Finally, consider this; were d1 to be awarded favoured-route status, all the pylons which at present deface Sheriffmuir (part of d2) would be dismantled and, for the first time in over 50 years, the wide-open spaces would become exactly that again. Now, that's something worth fighting for. The more people who write to the council demanding that the route should go west of Stirling, the better: any local authority is impressed by the volume of public response to a given issue, so pick up a pen and get writing ... please. Write to: Keith Yates, Chief Executive, Stirling Council, Viewforth, Stirling. FK8 2ET.
Finally finally, lest you think a line of pylons will blot the western landscape, just remember that little consideration was given to such niceties when an application to build a 50-turbine windfarm on Braes of Doune was rubber-stamped by Stirling Council 18 months ago.
Ed. - For some technical background, readers could do worse than look at the NRPB website, "Electric and Magnetic Fields At-a-Glance": http://www.nrpb.org/understand/emf/emf.htm And for the lighter/crazier side of pylons, see http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/bigh/bigh/pylonof.htm