PEOPLE living on the picturesque Shotley Peninsula can now enjoy the landscape free from overhead power lines for the first time in decades.
UK Power Networks has completed a �461,000 project to remove nearly four km of cables in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty between Erwarton and Shotley.
The company worked with the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB Unit to replace overhead electricity lines which run across the peninsula with underground cables. The final section of the cables was removed yesterday.
Lee Bodfield of UK Power Networks said: “We have done our best to avoid disruption to local footpath users and worked in an environmentally sensitive manner, for example diverting the cable a good distance away from a number of oak trees on the route to ensure we don’t harm their roots and working extra carefully near hedgerows.”
David Wood, chairman of the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB partnership, added: “Few projects make such an immediate and permanent improvement to our internationally important protected landscapes as the removal of power lines. I am extremely pleased that this work has taken place in my own ward.”
The scheme was funded by a special allowance from Ofgem.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here