NEPPC hosts 'Monster Wake Up' meeting in Trim tonight

The North-East Pylon Pressure Campaign (NEPPC) will hold a major public meeting in Knightsbrook Hotel, Trim, at 8pm tonight in a bid to reawaken public awareness to the impending planning application by EirGrid to erect hundreds of giant electricity pylons and overhead power lines across Meath, Cavan and Monaghan.
NEPPC said local landowners have remained steadfast in their opposition to EirGrid’s plans, but added that local communities have been lulled into a false sense of security that the risk of the pylons being erected had dissipated.
The campaign said that EirGrid is rolling out a €3.2 billion ‘Grid 25’ strategy founded on a preference for construction of a significant number of high voltage overhead lines and pylon towers.
A NEPPC spokesperson said: “This represents a major shift in the scale of electricity infrastructure development, which will have a profoundly negative impact on our countryside, but which, to date, has largely gone unnoticed by the farming community and general public. Such is the concern of many people, especially related to health risks, that a large audience is expected from all over the country.”
NEPPC has invited all local politicians to the meeting, and has asked an appointed spokesperson for each party to answer a number of specific questions around their views on the undergrounding option versus the overhead towers.
Each party will be accorded the same amount of time for presenting, and the meeting will be chaired in a disciplined and orderly manner, NEPPC added.
The campaign group has also invited the two IFA presidential candidates, Eddie Downey from Meath and Jer Bergin from Laois, to give their views on undergrounding.