This Saturday 30^th January, the people of the villages of Loxton, Christon and Webbington, in Somerset’s designated “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty” (AONB) will be marching in protest at National Grid’s proposal to erect a series of 46.5 metre-high giant Pylons carrying high voltage power lines from Hinkley Point nuclear power station through their valley.
 

Leaving from Christon at 10.30, to the sound of Church bells being rung as they have been rung so often over the centuries, in celebration or mourning, they will make their way to Loxton. A six-bell peel from Loxton’s 13^th Century church will herald them on their way towards Webbington Farm, where fun and refreshments will await.
 

The villagers stress that they are not protesting at the necessary increase of power supply, nor are they making any party-political point. They are protesting at the “consultation process” of National Grid which, having already dismissed 18 out of their 20 proposals, are determined to follow one of their two routes scarring right through, and towering over, the AONB, and destroying the landscape forever, rather than the logical direct undersea route between the two coastal points of Hinkley and Avonmouth.
 

If the importance of this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty were not reason enough, the undersea transmission of electricity is not only much shorter, but also substantially more efficient, and is a more permanent solution, than via these giant structures. The undersea option results in much less electricity being lost en route, lower EMF emissions, and therefore no requirement to generate more power at the Hinkley Point nuclear reactor than is needed.

The people of Loxton, Christon and Webbington feel that the agenda of National Grid is fundamentally flawed as a consultation process, emphasizing as it does repeatedly the interests of its own stakeholders, and paying little attention to the environment – something in which we are all “stakeholders”.

The community feel that, since we did not inherit this World from our fathers but have been entrusted with it for our children, it is the duty of everyone to do all they can to draw attention to the irreversible harm that would be done if this proposal is not exposed as defective, and its conclusions to be wrong.

This is why they will welcome everyone to march with them on Saturday, with bells peeling (not tolling), and singing in celebration of the beauty of their villages and the countryside, hoping, and determined it will still be loved by generations to come.