24/12/24 - Powerless: the rural community getting connected to the national grid
A rural community in Northumberland which has no mains electricity is getting ready to be connected to the national grid.
For 50 years the people living in the Upper Coquet Valley in Northumberland have campaigned to get mains electricity.
Living off-grid in one of the most remote areas of England means relying on expensive, dirty diesel generators which often break down and are easily overloaded. But now, a stroke of good fortune means it is finally happening.
A cable is being laid up the valley to connect three emergency phone masts to the national grid which means 16 properties, most of them farms, can be connected at the same time in a project jointly funded by the Home Office and the landowner, the MOD.
We hear from the farming families about how their lives are about to be transformed, about why the Northumberland National Park Authority allowed the scheme to go ahead even though not all the cable could be buried, and from the engineers who are tasked with doing the job with as little impact on a precious landscape as possible.
Produced and presented by Jo Lonsdale.
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