Landowners vow to fight pylon proposal

Transpower project manager Mike Tucker speaking with residents who turned out at the Maramarua hall last night. Picture / Paul Estcourt

Transpower concedes planning for Auckland's growing electricity demands should have been better.

At the first in a round of progress meetings on the proposed 400 kW line from Whakamaru to Otahuhu, grid programme manager Guy Waipara agreed with residents that Transpower should have acted earlier to solve Auckland's woes.

About 120 people turned out to the meeting in the Maramarua Hall last night. It is the first of six meetings across South Auckland and the Waikato over the next two weeks.

Affected landowners at the meeting last night vowed to fight the proposal every inch of the way, questioning why existing 220kV lines from Whakamaru to Otahuhu could not be upgraded to take a higher power load.

Mr Waipara said Transpower could not afford to take any lines out of service to upgrade them and maintain the necessary power supply. Remedial work on the lines now would only just see the supply continue to 2010.

"We can't even afford to take anything out of the system at the moment" Mr Waipara said.

Mangatangi resident Carmella James asked where Transpower's planning was.

Mr Waipara said, "hand on heart" there possibly should have been more planning and if anything, the proposed line should be going ahead sooner than the 2010 forecast. Transpower had "sat back and waited for demand side solutions to come forward, and they never did." Transpower agreed they shouldn't be in the situation they are now.

Since the last round of public meetings in November, Transpower has been inundated with calls and requests for information from landowners. There have been 2500 contacts to its call centre and website, the main issues covering the need for alternatives, health effects, property values, the effect the lines will have on land use, environmental impacts and how Transpower was going to choose the preferred route from the two options available.

Mr Waipara told the meeting all alternatives had been investigated but were not seen as viable. Going underground was too expensive and building shorter towers meant there would need to be more of them.

A 10 per cent reduction in height equalled 20 per cent more towers needed.

Environmental and property manager Allan Bradshaw said the route would be decided by June but a preferred option would be announced in May and opened for submissions and informal hearings.

The crowd was urged to get their own valuation and told Transpower would pay for it. Transpower has organised a panel of health experts to address health issues at meetings in Hamilton and Matamata next month. Mr Bradshaw said Transpower took no view as to whether the line was safe or not but said the line did meet World Health Organisation standards and landowners concerns could be addressed by the independent panel.

What it's about

* The top half of the North Island - especially Auckland - can't get enough electricity from the rest of the country because its transmission lines are out of date.

* Transpower, the company which runs the national grid, wants to solve the problem by building a new line of bigger pylons up to 70m high through private land across Waikato and South Auckland.

* Many landowners are horrified. They say the pylons will wreck their property values, restrict their ability to use their land and may also damage their health.