Latest news with #GENCymru
BBC News
03-04-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Green energy: Pylon plans could spark mass social unrest, Plaid warns
Civil unrest could break out if a company continues to try to access land by force for its plans to raise miles of pylons through rural Wales, a politician has GEN Cymru confirmed it had applied for court warrants to access private land by force after landowners refused its initial renewable energy firm told Newyddion S4C it made 11 applications to gain access to land to complete surveys and that court hearings have been confirmed on 7 and 14 a statement, it said it was trying to work positively with individuals and communities and had a legal right to access land as an Independent Distribution Operator Network. Adam Price, Plaid Cymru MS for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, warned the company to reconsider. He said: "We are staring at a situation where if the community continues with this strategy, we will see scenes of mass social unrest and opposition to these plans."Why threaten legal action against individuals within communities? Let's take a step back and have some dialogue."Dyfan Walters lives near one of the company's proposed paths of pylons on the outskirts of Llandovery in Carmarthenshire. He said he refused the land access application and was not afraid of being summoned to Walters said: "It is going to change the landscape of the area completely."From the research we have done there is a better way to do it. "People are already in court. This is the beginning, everyone feels so strongly." Mr Walters said he believed it is possible to put cables underground with a cost which "is very similar" to the erection of pylons."I can't understand why someone would want to move forward with the pylons when the community would be willing to work with them to put the cables underground," he said. Green GEN Cymru said they were "acting now to build and operate a green energy network for Wales" that will "tackle the energy crisis, the climate crisis and the cost-of-living crisis".They are proposing three major routes of pylons through the Welsh countryside in Powys, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, each spanning several miles. The projects are named Towy-Teifi, Towy-Usk and initially agreeing to be interviewed by Newyddion S4C, the company's representative withdrew a few hours before the interview was due to take place, citing political criticism of their proposed legal action and a wish to be consistent in their a statement, Green GEN Cymru said electricity infrastructure was of national significance, and as such it had a legal right to access has said it had been working positively with communities and had offered to pay for independent professional advice for landowners as well as offering financial compensation for any damage to land which occurs during its grid infrastructure is urgently required as Wales' electricity needs grow, it added.
BBC News
13-03-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Campaigner ready for latest battle to stop pylons
The owner of a popular canal-side inn is going into battle again to stop electricity pylons from being built GEN Cymru is seeking to run power lines almost 50km (31 miles) from Cefn Coch in Powys to connect with the National Grid at Lower Frankton in it has faced opposition from people, including Mark Baggett, the co-owner of the Navigation Inn at Maesbury successfully fought off a previous attempt to build pylons through the area and said the power cables should either run through Wales or run underground. In 2014, his pub became a focal point for what he said was a "very, very vocal" campaign against pylons, with information boards up in the even renamed it the "Pylon Inn" for a day to raise about the new plans, Mr Baggett said: "It's not fair that the proposals that come from Wales are not considering taking the power through their own country."We haven't got big mountains where you can hide things," he Llewellyn Jones from Green Gen Cymru has been involved in running a series of consultation events to explain the said the pylons would be smaller than the ones previously proposed, with an average height of 28.5m (94ft).He also promised to listen to people's views and said the plans had already been adapted to take feedback on board and had been moved away from communities such as Pant and Crickheath in he conceded: "This is a large infrastructure coming through parts of the country."This is not going to be an exercise where everybody's happy."He also said running the entire route underground would cost five times as much, and those costs would ultimately be passed on to the consumer. Mr Baggett said his pub was in "an extremely beautiful part of the country", and he wanted to keep it that said he worried for businesses, like a nearby wedding venue, and said pylons would "ruin the view" for wedding guests wanting to take Baggett said he and his fellow objectors were not so-called Nimbys - Not in My Back Yard - but wanted the alternatives properly looked on the plans were due to continue until mid-April, and a planning application was then expected next approved, work would start in 2027 and be completed by 2029. Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
