§ Mr. Astorasked the Minister of Power what lengths of 400 kilowatt cable the Central Electricity Generating Board has laid underground, or agreed to lay underground, in the various regions for which they are responsible; and what have been the reasons for these decisions in each individual case.
§ Mr. Frederick LeeThe Board will be placing about 3¾ miles of 400 kV cable underground on the western shore of and across the Glaslyn Estuary in North Wales, about 3½ miles in the Peak District National Park between Dunsford Bridge and Woodhead Station, and about 1½ miles under Southampton Water from the power station being built at Fawley.
The reasons for these relatively short stretches of underground cable were: in the first case, to protect a particularly fine view of Snowdonia up the Glaslyn Estuary; in the second case, to avoid a line of towers across a moorland ridge joining two sections of the National Park where it was considered that towers would he intolerably intrusive and destructive of the special quality of the landscape; and in the third case, to avoid a second 400 kV line up the west side of Southampton Water and round Southampton to Lovedean. The first two cases were decided after public inquiries.