Valley of Stones National Nature Reserve is the latest area to benefit from the distribution operator's ongoing £15m investment programme to underground 90km of overhead distribution lines in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Parks and National Scenic Areas across its central southern England and north of Scotland networks.
Taking just over three months to carry out - at a cost of £550,000 - the programme of works was completed at the end of 2022 and included the removal of nearly four kilometres of overhead power cables and a pole mounted transformer; replacing the infrastructure with over five kilometres of modern, efficient underground cabling to provide a more robust and flexible power supply to the local area.
The ancient trackway with its trail of sarsen stones dates back to Neolithic times and SSEN worked with Natural England and Dorset Archaeology to ensure the site was fully examined and assessed before any works could take place.
SSEN's Project Manager, Carl James explained: "With any of our undergrounding projects in this scheme, we have to fully understand the environment before we can agree that the area would benefit from works. This involves both our in-house environmental teams and external agencies who can advise us through their expert knowledge of the site and its history.
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"In the case of Valley of Stones, we engaged archaeologists from Wessex Archaeology to work on the exploratory excavations in the proposed area of undergrounding, so we were fully confident that our work would have no negative impact on the environment or the wildlife within it."
He continued: "On behalf of SSEN's team, I'd like to thank our external partners for their guidance and our customers for their patience while we worked to restore the uninterrupted view across this historic landscape."
SSEN's programme of works to replace Valley of Stones' overhead cable structure and associated equipment with a fully undergrounded system has the added benefit of providing a more resilient power supply to the area's homes and businesses to meet their current requirements and as they adopt low carbon technologies to achieve their net zero goals in coming years.
Tom Sunderland, Senior Reserve Manager, West Dorset National Nature Reserves for Natural England, said: "The work carried out by SSEN to remove the overhead powerlines has dramatically improved the visual amenity and landscape quality at the Valley of Stones National Nature Reserve (NNR). This benefits walkers and visitors to the NNR and has helped to restore an important ancient landscape.
"SSEN worked closely with Natural England to carefully plan the removal of the overhead powerlines to ensure that no damage was caused to the National Nature Reserve during the work."
Valley of Stones was proposed by local stakeholders as having the potential for visual improvement through the removal of the overhead network, and through subsequent consultation and analysis of the works was approved as part of SSEN's £15 million undergrounding programme.
While SSEN's overhead infrastructure provides a secure and cost-effective way of safely distributing electricity to homes and businesses, the distribution operator appreciates that the network can have an impact on the natural environment in officially designated beauty spots. It's through this understanding that SSEN encourages local people and visitors to these areas to share their views and assist in highlighting where investment through this £15 million undergrounding scheme will make the most difference.
