Pay us rent for ugly power pylons - farmers

A rural lobby group wants Transpower to make yearly payments to landowners. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Farmers whose pastures are blotted by unsightly power pylons want "rent" from the company that owns them.

Federated Farmers is recommending changes in the way national grid operator Transpower buys property to construct pylons, some as tall as 70m, on productive farmland.

The farmers' electricity spokesman, Philip York, called for the company to make yearly payments to landowners, instead of a lump sum, when new transmission lines were placed on private land.

He said that in the past 10 years the rise in rural land value had been "phenomenal", and Transpower's purchases often did not reflect market prices.

Farmers have battled for five years against a new 400kV line through the Waikato. Many initially opposed it, but more than half have now signed confidential agreements to allow it to be built on their land.

Under the Public Works Act, Transpower has the power to compel landowners to sell. Mr York said these purchases often resulted in farmers being unfairly compensated.

"The act says you're not meant to be better or worse off. I'd like to think you'd be a bit better off when you're having to go through all this trouble."

Farmers the Herald spoke to said pylons could interfere with irrigation systems, divide paddocks and generate noise, as well as being an ugly blot on the landscape.

The state-owned enterprise is investing $5 billion in the national grid over the next decade. A significant amount of that is to feed energy-hungry Auckland and create secure supply to avoid costly blackouts - such as in 2006 when the Otahuhu substation shut down.

Mr York said Federated Farmers was keen to support Transpower in this upgrade, but also wanted to ensure farmers' commercial interests were not undermined. A report released yesterday by the NZ Institute of Economic Research backed the option of periodic payments based on market value.

NZIER senior economist Peter Slough said because all past Transpower settlements were secret, it was difficult for farmers to assess what their land was worth, or how pylons affected their property price.

Don Riley, who owns a farm in South Waikato, is refusing to sell his land for the construction of three pylons because he says the compensation offered is not enough.

Mr Riley said there were hundreds of problems linked with electrical lines straddling rural areas. "Once they're there, they're there forever. If you want to change your farming practices ... there's going to be a problem."

So Transpower needed to be more open in its discussions about settlement, he said. If one of the pylons on his property is built he will leave his home.

Mr York said the placing of pylons through heartland New Zealand was an "emotional" issue.

At the height of the dispute between property owners and Transpower in 2005, Tirau farmers burned an effigy of former chief executive Ralph Craven.

Mr York said the NZIER report removed emotion and replaced it with evidence.