Underground power line 'could cost £19.7m a mile'

BURYING power lines to reduce the visual impact of the controversial Beauly-to-Denny overhead scheme would cost up to £19.7 million per mile, project developers claimed yesterday.

Officials with Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) said putting one five-mile section underground would add up to 90 million to the cost.

The firm has proposed installing the 400,000-volt overhead transmission line on a 137-mile route through Scotland.

The plan to replace the existing 132,000-volt line between Beauly, near Inverness, and Denny, near Stirling, has attracted more than 17,000 objections and calls for at least some of the line to be buried.

Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission (SHETL), a subsidiary of SSE, and SP Transmission - a subsidiary of ScottishPower - say the overhead scheme is "demonstrably more economic" than putting the line underground.

In a statement to the forthcoming Inverness local session of a public inquiry, due to end in December, Jim Smith, director of major projects for SSE, said the cost of the project would rise by 51.3 million for a 2.6-mile section of undergrounding, equating to 19.7 million a mile.

Sue Hopkinson, of the pressure group Highlands Before Pylons, said: "How much more could be done for the environment if the 300-400 million they wish to be spent on this project could be diverted to such worthy ends?"