The Countryside Alliance has responded to a consultation by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) on its proposed Electricity Transmission Design Principles (ETDP), which will underpin the future design and build of the UK’s high-voltage electricity transition network. We have called for clearer safeguards for rural communities, landscapes and local economies as the UK expands its electricity grid.
While welcoming the clarity of NESO’s draft principles and supporting its mission to deliver a secure and resilient energy network, the Alliance has urged the organisation to do more to ensure that the needs and voices of rural communities are meaningfully reflected in the future design and siting of electricity transmission infrastructure.
The Alliance supported the emphasis placed in several of the draft principles on protections for landscapes, natural environments and community amenity. We welcomed preferences they expressed for brownfield over greenfield development, using natural screening and siting substations sensitively to minimise disruption to landowners.
However, we warned that the current draft does not fully account for the real-world impacts of overhead power lines and pylons on rural areas. Findings from Countryside Alliance Wales’ recent infrastructure survey showed that 93% of respondents opposed pylons in their area, citing impacts on tourism, business confidence and mental wellbeing. These consequences, we argued, should be recognised as more than aesthetic concerns and built explicitly into future design assessments.
The Alliance expressed concern about the principles’ “starting presumption” in favour of overhead transmission lines, which is to be reversed for lines crossing designated landscapes. We called for clearer guidance on when these presumptions might be overturned, particularly in landscapes of high local or national value, and for greater recognition of undesignated yet much-loved countryside.
We also questioned the reliance on traditional steel lattice pylons, warning against stifling innovation. NESO should, we argued, support research into less visually intrusive and more sympathetic designs already being adopted elsewhere in Europe.
The response called for earlier and more structured community consultation, with clear expectations about how feedback should shape projects and how communities can challenge deviations from the principles.
Finally, the Alliance highlighted the clustering effect of renewable energy projects around substations. Because substations attract solar farms, areas where they are sited can face disproportionate losses of productive farmland and disruption to local economies built around food and farming. We argued that NESO should “design out” this risk by ensuring that substation placement explicitly considers the likely secondary impacts of associated infrastructure, helping protect agricultural productivity, local jobs and national food security.
The Countryside Alliance recognises the importance of a resilient, modern electricity network but insists that the transition to net zero must not come at the expense of the rural environment or the wellbeing of its communities. We are invited members of NESO’s societal forum for farming and land use, and will continue to use that platform to advocate for the interests of rural communities as the transition continues.