𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Dame Priti Patel has slammed the  Labour Government’s “obsession” with  imposing pylons on the East of England.

She warned that failure to get the 112-mile Norwich to Tilbury electricity line operating by 2030 could lead to consumers facing £2.8billion a year of costs.

The senior Tory MP said: “The Labour Government’s obsession with imposing pylons on the East of England was flawed from the start.

“We’ve been warning that they will fall behind schedule and that’s before any legal challenges are considered. Instead of pursuing alternatives to the pylons, Labour’s net zero obsession will now hit bill payers with nearly £3bn of extra costs each year because the infrastructure will not be built in time. Labour should apologise to bill payers and communities across the East of England.

“There’s still time to ditch the pylons plans and produce alternative proposals to transfer energy from offshore wind to the grid without causing this level of damage to our countryside. And with the pylons set to miss the 2030 target, the alternatives are more attractive.”

The line, which will transport green energy, is set to be in service by 2031, a year after Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s target for almost clean power by 2030.

Hundreds of people along the proposed route have voiced outrage at the proposals for the electricity lines.

The controversial plans from National Grid, and backed publicly by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, will lead to around 500 new pylons being installed as part of the Norwich to Tilbury “great grid upgrade”.

Dame Priti, whose constituency faces around 50 new pylons being erected as part of the plan, accused the Government of refusing all requests to consider alternatives, including undergrounding and an offshore grid claiming that pylons would be cheaper.

National Grid has confirmed in a letter that construction is expected between 2027 and 2031.

An email from National Grid this year, seen by the Express, states that “completion [is] expected by December 2030”.

Meanwhile the Government’s Energy Minister Michael Shanks admitted delays to bringing the new powerlines into service will lead to billpayers being hit with £2.8bn of costs each year.

He said: “The project currently has an earliest in-service date 2031, and NESO’s independent advice on 2030 Clean Power demonstrates that failing to bring this forward to 2030 will reduce clean power on the GB grid by 1% and could increase constraint costs by £2.8bn per annum.”

Rosie Pearson, founder of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk Pylons campaign group, said: “This just demonstrates the sheer incompetence of everyone involved in the grid upgrade. National Grid never intended to have the Norwich to Tilbury pylons operational before 2031 so it is unclear why anyone in Government or NESO ever pretended it was going to happen before then. The quickest solution would always have been to listen communities and underground the whole project using HVDC cables – less destructive and no more costly than pylons.”

A spokeswoman for National Grid said: “Clean Power 2030 is a stretching target, and we welcome the level of ambition from Government. We recognise that these are vital national infrastructure projects, identified by NESO as critical to achieving the UK’s clean power goals. The Norwich to Tilbury and Sea Link projects have always been planned for delivery post-2030, with current schedules targeting 2031, subject to the planning process.”