Pylon Consultation Postponed - Again

National Grid has again postponed the consultation on North West Coast Connections (NWCC) which was due to start on 8th September.  We have yet to be given a new date for the consultation, but the suggestion is that it may not be launched until the New Year.

National Grid says the reason for postponement is that they need more time to discuss their proposals with various people and organisations.

It would appear that pressure that Friends of the Lake District and other organisations have been putting on National Grid to take the National Park’s high quality landscape and environment into account means that Grid has seen how unprepared they are to deal with the impact of pylons on the National Park and candidate World Heritage Site designations of the Lake District. 

Friends of the Lake District therefore considers the postponement of the consultation to be good news and hopes that it means that Grid will take the time to develop undergrounding and tunnel mitigation strategies to prevent damage to the landscape of the National Park and its setting.  We also hope that Grid discusses contributions towards mitigation with NuGen (the Moorside Nuclear Power Station developer) as the grid connection is only necessary because of the proposed Moorside power station.

The postponement of the consultation means that the timetable for the submission of the NWCC Development Consent Order (DCO) to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS) which was planned for March 2017 is very likely to have to be moved.  It is hoped that this will mean that the Moorside and NWCC consultations will not run concurrently next year, which was the original plan. This would relieve concerns about the pressure which would otherwise be put on members of the public and small organisations such as Friends of the Lake District to respond to both consultations at the same time.

As soon as we know more about the new consultation dates, we will let you know.