Bill Bryson: 'one of finest landscapes'. Photo: CRC/Anne Purkiss
A leading author and outdoors activist has backed a campaign to keep giant electricity pylons out of a national park.
Bill Bryson, best known for his Notes from a Small Island and The Road to Little Dribbling, said the Lake District should be nurtured and cherished.
He lent his support to the Friends of the Lake District drive to get National Grid to bury the proposed power line in west Cumbria where it passes through the national park.
The company wants to put up giant pylons through 24km (15 miles) of the Lake District to serve a planned new nuclear power station near the existing Sellafield site. National Grid’s North West Coast Connections infrastructure project would see 400kV cables run around the West of Cumbria from Carlisle in the North to Heysham in the South.
Mr Bryson, a former president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “This is one of the finest landscapes on the planet. It should be cherished and nurtured, not used as a convenient shortcut for business interests.”
The author’s endorsement comes in the week that sees National Grid hosting the last in a series of 27 information events being held to show people how plans are developing for the proposed route.
The Friends said it adds to growing pressure on National Grid to bury power cables underground and shelve proposals to construct pylons within the national park boundary to the West.
Scottish Walker
28 October 2015Why is the Lake District sacred? In We have pylons and turbines all over Scotland, mostly providing power for south of the border.
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02 November 2015First - the Pond District is a National Park, which means it should be protected from large scale industrial development. Second - many English and Welsh people campaigned against Beauly-Denny and many inappropriate wind farms.
So the Lake District is sacred, and so, in my opinion, is the whole of the Highlands and Islands, as well as parts of southern Scotland.