Pull down the pylons

One thing Britain does not need is more pylons. There are already legions of the metallic monsters stomping across our fields and hills — 22,000 of them in total — and 550 of these have colonised some of the loveliest countryside in Britain: across the Peak District; through the New Forest and the South Downs; along the North Wales coast.

We should be dismantling these lines, as suggested by the excellent Campaign to Protect Rural England. We should be pulling down the pylons and running the cables underground or under the sea. But instead National Grid, supported by the government, is making plans to put up even more: another 12 new buzzing, high-voltage lines supported by hundreds more pylons looming over another 170 miles of England and Wales. Our landscape is our heritage. This government may not appreciate it, but future generations will. We owe it to them to preserve what beauty remains.