Alexander Temerko has reassured green campaigners he has no plans to dig up the South Downs
Published in the Portsmouth News on 3rd September 2014
A RUSSIAN oligarch has moved to reassure green campaigners he has no plans to dig up the South Downs to pipe electricity to the UK.
Alexander Temerko (pictured) had asked the National Grid to connect an electricity pipeline from his power station in France to the substation at Lovedean.
As the head of a consortium of investors, he wants to bring enough electricity to the south to power 1.4m homes.
But he claims the National Grid told him the Lovedean unit is close to capacity and his only option is to connect to a substation in Surrey, which would mean laying cables through the South Downs.
Reports of this led environmentalists to fear for the future of the stunning landscape.
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