Bromley-Marshland line

Press, 28 November 1980, Page 12

Bromley-Marshland line

In certain situations, power pylons can be an adornment to a landscape. A suburb is not one of those places and only sympathy can be felt for the residents of those suburbs which the proposed Bromley to Marshland transmission line will traverse. Those near the Bromley end of the line deserve special sympathy because they have already put up for .years with the rubbish dump and sewage farm.

But although no home-owners want pylons and lines across their neighbourhoods, equally no consumers of electricity want an inadequate or unreliable supply of power. The Electricity Division and the Municipal Electricity Department, in seeking to have the line built, want only to provide the most reliable supply as economically and as efficiently as they can. They are not, by any means, regardless of the environmental disadvantages of the proposal, but have calculated that any alternative, with fewer disadvantages, would be expensive.

The line is intended to provide local points of supply in the Marshland and Belfast areas and an additional line into the Bromley sub-station. The first of these goals could, probably, be met with less disruption to established and future neighbourhoods by bringing a line in from the north-west. This would, however, leave the Bromley sub-station supplied only by the lines across the foot of the Port Hills, and a third Port Hills line would be even more unacceptable than the proposed line between Bromley and Marshland. Putting that line underground (the solution proposed by some opposing the pylons and overhead lines) would be very expen-

sive. The cost would be more than can be justified to avoid either disfiguring the areas through which the, line will be built or inconveniencing those homeowners whose houses lie directly in its path. It is important to remember that the line will directly inconvenience only a few people, a very few compared with the large number who wilt benefit from a reliable supply provided at the least cost. The sensible answer, unpalatable as this may be for those affected, may be that the few should be inconvenienced in the interest of the many. This would not be the first, nor the last, occasion on which individuals have had to accept inconvenience or worse in the best interests of the community as a whole. For this argument to be accepted, the advocates of the line must make a convincing case that the line, is needed and that there is no other way of meeting the objectives sought with less harm to the environment and at not substantially more cost to consumers of electricity. If this case is made, detailed planning for and construction of the line should go ahead apace. There will be less disruption if the line is built now rather than later, so that homeowners or purchasers know exactly where they stand. However carefully, the line is designed to reduce its harmful impact on the residential and recreational areas through which it will pass, some are going to suffer and provision should be made, when the costs, of the various alternatives are calculated, to compensate those who will be st a disadvantage if the line is built as planned.