'Ring of steel' alert hovers over major

Critics fear the destruction of iconic landscapes amid threats to new and old national parks in the push for cleaner energy. Andrew Forgrave reports

- 

ALMOST under the radar in Wales is an issue bubbling away that threatens to be the defining challenge of the age.

In the coming years, a 176km pylon link running down the country is to be built to underpin the UK's switch to wind and solar energy.

At stake are some of the country's most stunning landscapes amid claims they will be "industrialised" and spoiled.

And wherever the pylons go, wind farms and solar parks are sure to follow, potentially threatening some of the most valuable farmland in Wales.

Worried that the route might pass through Eryri National Park, Cymdeithas Eryri (Snowdonia Society) has launched a hands-off campaign amid fears 55m pylons will one day march across Cader Idris and the Rhinogydd mountains.

A more likely candidate is the idyllic Vale of Clwyd, raising the prospect of pylons blighting views from the country's newest national park in north-east Wales.

As the Western Mail has previously reported, separate pylon routes across mid Wales have already landed farmers in court amid scenes of mass opposition and dire warnings of "civil unrest".

In some circles, the spectre of the Tryweryn flooding has been raised as a parallel with the destruction of rural Wales to benefit others. Relatively few people in Wales will benefit, it's claimed.

Meeting decarbonisation deadlines, both in Wales and England, is driving an unseemly scramble to beef up the country's electricity transmission infrastructure. While most people accept the need for post-oil energy certainty, it may have unintended consequences, leaving parts of Wales as a junkyard for abandoned pylons erected in haste and regretted for decades.

"North Wales will literally be surrounded by a ring of steel," said Anglesey-based Dr Jonathan Dean, director of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW).