Dear Central Bylines,
I don’t know how much research citizen journalist Richard Hall did when he sat down to write his article ‘Fainting at the sight of pylons: the green energy ‘threat’’ for Central Bylines. Not a lot, I suspect. It’s more a stream of consciousness and less the sort of balanced article that a professional journalist would turn out.
I have been asked to fact check it, and I could take it apart sentence by sentence. So let’s just take it by the jugular and shake the main inaccuracies out of it.
There’s two in his first paragraph. Lincolnshire is not frightened of change and it is not fighting the Government over renewable energy infrastructure.
If Mr Hall had taken a few minutes reading just some of the information on the No Pylons Lincolnshire website, YouTube and social media sites, or interviewed anyone from NPL, he’d quickly realise that what Lincolnshire is most frightened of is the Government making a huge mistake in its chosen type and location of infrastructure in its mad dash to meet its crazy 2030 commitment to clean, green energy.
Lincolnshire IS fighting the Government – to ensure that we are not saddled for generations with unnecessary, outdated infrastructure in the wrong place – ruining the landscape, devaluing homes and taking thousands of acres of this country’s most productive land out of food production. Then there’s the anxiety, causing some illness already I’m sure, from the untested health concerns
There are odd moments of blindingly-obvious accuracy in Mr Hall’s article. Of course we are fiercely protective of our landscape. Who wouldn’t be? Yes, we value the Wolds and yes, we value the fertile farmland. Two ticks for Mr Hall there.
He accuses Lincolnshire County Council of supporting drilling for oil and gas in 2023. The only reference I could find relating to the council’s activity in this field in 2023 was its refusal of permission for oil production at Biscathorpe, in the Wolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which was then overruled by the planning inspectorate.
And there is not the conflict Mr Hall suggests in the council’s decisions to oppose onshore wind and solar farms and having a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its own buildings – there are more ways to skin a cat.
And, no, it doesn’t really like the idea of having nuclear waste buried off the east coast – another accuracy tick Mr Hall.
Now, the big one, the proposal for an 87-mile line of 50-metre high pylons all the way through Lincolnshire. Yes, yes, yes, we oppose it. Because there is a better way.
Full marks for mentioning NESO (National Energy Support Operator), Mr Hall. In its very first report it conceded that the necessary cabling could be buried underground instead of overhead cables on ugly and archaic steel monsters at similar cost if the 2030 target was set back by just four years. Exactly the pause for a rethink that NPL has been campaigning for.
Mr Hall appears to support the undemocratic announcements to tear up the rule books, ignore decades of sensible planning law and steamroller through infrastructure proposals with deaf ears turned towards what anyone else says.
Lincolnshire is a “heritage Disneyland”? Has Mr Hall ever been to the south of the county? Disneyland it ain’t. It’s farming, farming, farming and a bit more farming. Why? Because the soil is so good. It’ll grow practically anything and, in lots of places, two crops a year.
And we absolutely do have a cogent argument for greener ways of meeting our energy needs of the future. It’s well-researched and argued that most of the new power we need is out in the North Sea, but it requires a future-proofed strategy to join up the current piece-meal thinking and develop an offshore grid as our Continental cousins in Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark are doing – offshore substations into which existing and new offshore turbines can plug and play.
Solar makes questionable economic sense, but these should first be placed on brownfield sites (there are some unused air base sites in Lincolnshire) and on industrial and commercial rooftops. Certainly not on many thousands of acres of the most fertile land. That way is madness and a certain way to impact food security.
Much has been made recently of the potential loss of productive farmland through the Budget-announcing farming inheritance tax. Loss of farmland through solar development is as big, or a bigger, risk.
Mr Hall admits the new, green energy is needed for areas of the country other than Lincolnshire. In fact Lincolnshire requires very little additional power, but the plan is to use it as a cheap superhighway to shoot power from the North Sea overhead and overland to where it is most needed in the south east.
That power should and can be transported along the sea bed closer to where it’s needed, with only super-necessary onshore infrastructure built, and on brownfield sites wherever possible. Mr Hall says this is supported without any evidence – Lincolnshire to Denmark underground and undersea, undersea cables to Lincolnshire from Scotland – what more evidence is required?
He’s in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks we are climate change deniers, as he alleges. But I’m pleased he mentioned the increasing frequency of named storms. We currently have Storm Darragh whistling about the eaves. Perhaps the power will go off with those overhead cables so exposed.
Andrew Malkin (No Pylons Lincolnshire Press Officer)
