Protect Hale Purlieu

Aim

TO OVERTURN PLANS PROPOSED BY NATIONAL GRID TO BURY 400KV ELECTRICITY CABLES ACROSS LAND THAT CONTAINS VITAL PROTECTED SPECIES AND HABITATS.

THIS CAMPAIGN SEEKS TO RAISE FUNDS TO PAY FOR SPECIALIST LEGAL ADVICE TO STOP THIS DESECRATION.

Hale Purlieu is situated within the northern sector of the New Forest National Park in Hampshire, England. This is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Conservation Area and a Ramsar site. Since 2014, National Grid have been developing plans to bury the cables currently carried by 8 pylons across Hale Purlieu. Their project is known as the Visual Impact Provision or VIP and its sole purpose is to improve marginally  the local landscape.

 This comes at a significant cost, both financially and environmentally. Financially, funds of about  £110 million have been earmarked for this project, the cost to be borne  by  surcharging bills for all electricity users in England and Wales. Environmentally, the project seeks to dig up 70 acres (28 hectares) of humid heathland which is subject to many layers of national and international legal protection. Species threatened include nightjar, dartford warbler, woodlark, hen harrier, smooth snake, silver studded blue butterfly and eight species of bat including the Western Barbastelle.

The Visual Impact Provision is a fund of £500 million that Ofgem (the Office of Gas and Electricity markets; the government appointed regulator who determines consumer prices) has provided for National Grid to remove high voltage overhead transmission lines from ‘Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty’, replacing them with cables buried one metre underground or housed  in tunnels.

The proposal is to remove a stretch of about 2.6km of overhead line and eight pylons. National Grid have been investigating routes for laying underground cabling for about four years; the current proposed route adopted as recently as July 2018 is the fifth attempt to avoid damage to the terrain, ecology and the habitat of rare wildlife and in particular three protected species of birds. This route is about 3.2 km long and the working swathe ranges between 75 and 140 metres with a 'permanent swathe' of typically 40 metres in which no trees will be permitted to grow and any restoration at all is highly problematic. There are 12 cables buried in 4 troughs spaced widely to allow dissipation of the heat continuously generated by the current passing along the cables. The time to complete this project is now said by National Grid to be at least 2 years but there is as yet no credible schedule. The latest information from National Grid is that the planning application will be submitted in July 2019.

National Grid take environmental advice from interest groups, primarily Natural England, The National Trust, The New Forest National Park Authority, Verderers of the New Forest, and the Forestry Commission. To date none of these groups have committed themselves to National Grid's plans but declared themselves to be waiting for the planning application.

It has been conceded by Natural England that this project will have an ‘adverse effect’ on protected species and habitats, particularly with respect to the impact to the 3 bird species accorded ‘Special Protected Area’ status and the 8 species of bat. This recognises that the National Grid proposal contravenes the ‘Habitats Directive’ and ‘Wild Birds Directive’, and that it is a criminal offence to violate the habitat of these species. Competent authorities (in this case New Forest National Park Authority) cannot consent to plans or projects they determine are likely to have an adverse effect on the integrity of this site. The planning application from National Grid will therefore seek to use the 'exemption' powers of article 6(4) to gain approval despite the undisputed damage to the environment and specifically to the protected species.

This exemption requires that a plan or project can only proceed provided 3 tests are met.

- There must be no feasible alternative solutions which are less damaging to the affected site.

- There must be ‘imperative reasons of overriding public interest’ (IROPI), for the plan or project to proceed.

- All necessary compensatory measures must be secured to ensure in advance that the overall coherence of the network of sites is protected.

It is clear that there are feasible alternative solutions which are less damaging, including ‘doing nothing’ and deep bore tunneling. Natural England guidance states “As part of the planning process we always require the applicant to have considered the ‘do nothing’ scenario.”

It is incorrect to suggest that ‘there are imperative reasons of overriding public interest’ and the National Park Authority can only consider reasons relating to human health, public safety, or beneficial consequences of primary importance to the environment, or other imperative reasons of overriding public interest only after having regard to the opinion of the European Commission or, post Brexit, the UK successor authority.

The RSPB and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust have expressed their concerns and objections to this project.

The National Park Authority have recently refused planning for a similarly damaging scheme in 2016 at nearby Latchmore Brook.

Further useful information can be found at https://haleprotection.uk/ or https://www.facebook.com/halepylons/ or email [email protected]

This project successfully funded on 14th April 2019