Ms Deborah Meghan:

When we look at routing power lines, we look at routing along roads. As part of the Grid Link project one will notice that one or two of the corridors do, for sections, parallel along the M9. As Deputy Ellis pointed out, the start and end points are slightly different to some of the roads and the routing principles in regard to the development of power lines is slightly different from that of a road. With roads one is looking for low land to minimise cut and fill. It is a different design process to that of an overhead powerline. We are trying to reduce the visual impact. Again, we look to different landscapes where we can look to absorb the powerline within that landscape. Sometimes it is in the higher ground in the background in which one could screen existing powerlines. Therefore, we must take into account all of the different types of routing principles. The Deputy is correct - we look at the existing road network in respect of all our projects. There are sections which parallel but usually for the full length the line is not suitable because of the different end points and different routing principles. It is very much a different type of infrastructure.