Boxing clever

The outages caused by storms bringing down trees on power transmission lines on Boxing Day 1998 in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Northern England forced ScottishPower to modify its pylon policy. The results of the analysis of pylons requiring work by the Rural Care Team at ScottishPower are summarised, and the identification of the problems caused by the Sitk spruce is reported. The selection of the relocation and clearance remediation option, the policy of replacing one tree with two, the approach to landowners, and the need to consider environmental concerns during the planning of networks are discussed. (UK)