by Nick Lillitos
nlillitos@thekmgroup.co.uk

The tripods are coming - with a planned invasion of Kent.

They're preparing to deliver a high-voltage shock - an invading 'army' of hundreds of monster 160ft high pylons.
We can reveal the National Grid is planning to erect 95 kilometres of these imposing towers across the North Downs and Weald - though the exact locations have yet to be specified.

Yet more pylons are expected to follow, taking a separate route across Kent towards Canterbury.

The only way they can be stopped from blighting the county is for the grid to lay their electric cables underground.

That's the view of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) which is planning a hard fight to 'bury' them out of sight.

Richard Knox-Johnston, chairman of CPRE, Protect Kent branch, said: "The National Grid have been desperately trying to keep their plans under the carpet for as long as possible.

"They realise it will cause a storm but we intend to resist."

Mr Knox-Johnston and his team learnt of the grid's intentions from one of its publications 'Transmission Network Quarterly Connections Update, incorporating the Seven Year Statement," published last year.

A CPRE spokesman said: "This information was not a leak or anything like that. It was rather buried in the report so we had to really dig it out."

If the National Grid has its way the giant towers' overhead cables will connect to new wind farms and the next generation of nuclear power stations.

"Great swathes of the Kent countryside will be vandalised irreversibly, unless these lines are run underground," Mr Knox-Johnston insisted.

"The National Grid estimates the cost per km for buying the cables will be £22m.

"We believe this is exaggerated as burying high-voltage cables in Denmark costs as little as £3.5m."

The exact route the pylons will take has not yet been published by the grid, but an outline indicates they will stretch from Lydd to Croydon which cuts across the North Downs and the Weald - a 95km route, including a 4km tunnel.

The anticipated year for the pylons 'march' is flagged for 2017-18.

Then the following year, more pylons are expected to follow, appearing on a route embracing Canterbury through to Richborough, near Sandwich.