CAMPAIGNERS fighting plans to build 110 miles of pylons across the East Anglia countryside have welcomed incoming Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge to look to offshore alternatives.

Members of Essex Suffolk Norfolk Pylons is opposing National Grid plans to build the 50-metre-high pylons.

Rosie Pearson, who heads the campaign group, said: “Unlike Liz Truss, who had her head in the sand about how to transmit excess wind power from the North Sea out of East Anglia, Rishi Sunak did state his position clearly during the summer leadership campaign.

“We are delighted that he committed to reducing onshore infrastructure and to building on the offshore transmission review.

“We therefore call on him, as a matter of urgency, to re-open that review.

“The short-sighted offshore transmission review, published this summer, threw East Anglia under a bus by ignoring the need for an offshore grid.

“The review instead continued the damaging piecemeal approach to electricity transmission that harms our coastlines, communities and countryside and costs consumers billions of pounds.”

Under proposals for the ‘East Anglia Green Energy Enablement’ project, a 180-mile route of power lines suspended mostly on new pylons would run through Suffolk and into Essex, past Dedham, Langham and crossing the A12 into Tendring to connect into the site of the East Anglia Connection substation.