We are holding a vigil to stop climate change. This is part of a string of events happening across the UK and the World headed off by the WAVE demonstration which is being held in London on Saturday the 5th of December to encourage our leaders to take the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change seriously.

The National Grid's "Consultation" over the pylon issue for North Somerset,
is like some ghastly timeshare sales pitch. "Please tell us which option you
prefer and why?"  Our dilemma: Corridor '1' (wrong location, ill-considered,
not value for money) or Corridor '2' (wrong location, ill-considered, not
value for money)? In the National Grid's exercise in sham democracy, there
isn't a 'none of the above' option and we need one.

This whole exercise is designed to split our community right down the
middle, setting one side against another.  The time has come to stand
together as one.

Using 1950's technology for a 21st Century project is unacceptable.  There
are other very real alternatives for example:

1) Using cables to go under the Severn

2) Putting the lines underground as they do with gas;

3) If super conducting cables were used, as they are now being in the USA
and parts of Europe, a three foot wide trench could be dug along the side of
the M5, and there would be energy savings to boot!

National Grid cite the costs of alternatives as being between 12 and 17
times more expensive. Other evidence from the USA would suggest the real
cost would be somewhere between 5 and 10 times more, and with new technology
options becoming cheaper every day, who is to say what the difference will
be in five to ten years time, when the new power line will actually be
needed (remember they have not started work on the new nuclear power
stations yet and the actual installation of the transmission line would take
less than 18 months).

But this issue is not just about short term money considerations, the
proposed powerlines are so high (46.5 metres) that they will need lights
running down the side to prevent aircraft from Bristol Airport flying into
them, and they will be up for so long (80 years life expectancy), that they
will blight the view both by day and night for generations to come.

The beauty of an underground superconductor cable system would be that it
would not only remain hidden, but the transmission of power from future
expansion of energy in the South West (from renewable resources such as the
Severn and new as yet to be built wind farms and tidal stream generators)
could with ease be accommodated in a super conducting cable. Super
conducting cables are also massively more efficient something that is of
great importance when we think of global warming and the need to conserve
and use energy wisely.

The proposed 1950's mega pylons will by comparison 'heat the air' and will
be suited to the needs of the expanded EDF nuclear power station at Hinkley
Point and nothing else.

There are also health concerns, the power carried by the proposed pylons
leaps from 132,000 volts carried in existing lines in the area to 400,000
volts.  Worries over health are swept away as a statistical blip - earnest
reassurance is given by the National Grid  'electricity pylons won't cause
any harm to nearby residents or children in adjacent schoolrooms', and those
professional critics who report a higher incidence of cancer and leukaemia
near pylons are dismissed as unreliable nutters.

Infrastructure projects, if they are large enough to be taken out of the
local planning process, are certainly large enough to deserve serious
consideration of how best to minimize the damage to the local environment
and serious investment in solutions which are acceptable to local people.

National Grid's consultation should be a consultation.  It should give us
all the information we need to make an informed decision.  We need to be
able to choose:  to know how long the routes are, and what the real costs
are if National Grid put the power lines underwater in the Bristol Channel,
on land alongside the M5 corridor, underground along National Grid's
favoured routes, or overland on those routes as they currently propose.  We
all need to consider the options, but we're denied that chance.  Ultimately,
we are going to pay for this; so will our children, and their children's
children.

This is not a consultation.  It's an imposition.  Think again, National Grid
and come back to us with some real alternatives.

Brian Mathew