High-power cable plans could see Arrowe Park golf course dug up

Jan 11 2012 by Lorna Hughes, Birkenhead News

PART of a Wirral golf course could be dug up as part of a major engineering project to lay a high-powered electricity cable the length of the borough.

Wirral Council’s cabinet will be asked tomorrow (Thursday) to approve the plan to lay the cable across Arrowe Park municipal golf course because “no other engineering solution is viable”.

The Western High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Link cable will bring power from Scottish windfarms to a power station in Connah’s Quay, in north Wales, where it will feed into the national power grid.

The power cable is needed because the current links for bringing electricity from Scotland – which is providing increasing amounts of renewable energy – are said to be operating at capacity.

It will be laid in the Irish Sea for 370km and brought on land in Wirral, travelling the length of the borough before reaching north Wales.

The project is being jointly developed by National Grid Electricity Transmission and SP Transmission, who said the final route through Wirral is expected to be announced in March.

It is anticipated the cable will be laid and operational by late 2015.

Before then, the council is being asked to approve plans to lay the cable through Arrowe Park municipal golf course.

One of the engineering options would only need three of the course’s holes to be closed, although one might have to be shut for up to 13 weeks.

A council report said an alternative proposal – to install the cable along Thingwall Road East, in Thingwall – “was not a viable option” because of the presence of other cables and the disruption it would cause.

A spokeswoman for National Grid said: “We are trying to finalise the cable route across Wirral and we are in discussions with the council, other bodies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency, as well as landowners.”