"The power lines have to go somewhere!"

There is a lead story in this morning's paper about the massive new power lines which will be needed to carry our "renewable" energy in and out of the city. Predictably it is also about the farmers who will lose some of their land so that the lines can go across them. The article says farmers will be "compensated" but will they?

Of course they won't be compensated. They will get an inadequate one off payment. It will be at the lowest possible rate the government can get away with and it will be paid to farmers out of our taxes - and their taxes. 

Yes, we need power. The lines are always going to have to go somewhere.  The problem is the plans for these are across prime farming land. We have already lost far too much farming land. 

One possible route is across the farming land in the area in which I was born. It is difficult to imagine the true extent of the likely harm the monstrous pylons will do. It will not simply be that the land around each pylon is no longer able to be used. The pylons have to be put there in the first place. It will be at least one year of cropping which will be destroyed by this process and then less land available every year.  There can be no compensation adequate for that. 

The person who has just spoken to me about this in the very early morning quiet just shrugged. He has never lived in a rural area. He clearly thinks his power is a simple mater of flicking a switch. It isn't like that at all.