East Anglian residents fear a crick in the neck from looking up at proposed power lines

Earlier this month Waveney Valley MP Adrian Ramsay asked for a pause in the 'controversial' 114-mile (184-km) scheme that could run from Norwich to Tilbury in Essex.

Plans to build a line of pylons across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex have left residents 'in despair', councillor Keith Kidder has claimed.

Keith Kidder, Conservative county councillor for Diss and Datt, said, 'I've never seen people either quite so angry or quite so in despair over these proposals.'

Dan Snooper, chairman of the scrutiny committee, said they opposed the 'pylon-icide' with every fibre of their being.

'We feel the pylon plan is an absolutely unacceptable genocide,' he said. 'It doesn't bring benefits to Norfolk, there are alternative technologies out there, which haven't been fully explored, or even discovered yet.

'We are all at risk of death from getting a terrible crick in the neck from looking up at them. We are not used to that round here, it's all on the flat. Vertical things are very challenging to some of the older residents. They suffer from vertigo if they stand near a lamppost for too long.'

Several of the locals have already started wearing neck braces, to get them used to holding their heads steady. Others have even been seen in hoodies to block out the sight of the proposed erections.

Jilly Barmey, who said the pylons would be built 200m (656ft) from her house near Bunwell, south Norfolk, said the proposal had already affected her daily life.

'There is no thought for the death and destruction that pylons would bring to many of our most neurotic and sensitive communities.

'I think of it every day. It's impossible for me to exist in the countryside I love without imagining these horrible, huge pylons dominating everything and looking menacing and threatening and spoiling what we hold dear, like big Nazi megastructures.

'The worst thing is, it will hit house prices.'

Image credit: Wix AI