Green GEN Cymru (GGC) wants to build a 60-mile-long network using 33-metre-tall pylons through the Tywi and Teifi Valleys to connect onshore wind farm projects to the national grid.
However, the project has been met with strong opposition from communities since it was proposed in 2022 and several landowners have turned down the firm’s requests to access their land to carry out surveys.
GGC has made 11 applications to access the private land, with a number of court cases set to take place from Monday against those who have refused permission.
The court battles could prove a stumbling block for Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, who plans to build hundreds of pylons across Britain’s countryside in his Net Zero push.
Eirian Edwards, the Co-Chairman of the Llandovery Pylon Community Action Group, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the pylons would have a “real impact” on an otherwise “unspoilt part of Wales”.
He said: “It’s agricultural land, very beautiful. It’s going to affect our landscape drastically, while there are other options available such as undergrounding.”
The group have urged GGC to instead opt for the “undergrounding” of cables, rather than using pylons.
Mr Edwards said farmers were not allowing the company access to their land because the plans were “contrary to Welsh Government policy” which “clearly states” that any new electrical infrastructure in Wales should be undergrounded.
He argued that undergrounding – which is favoured in Denmark – was not as expensive as it once was and that using a process called “cable ploughing” made it “cost comparative” to pylons.
Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru Senedd member for Carmarthen East and
Dinefwr, said the company should reconsider and warned that their plans
could cause “mass social unrest”....<<<Read More>>>...\
