A wreath of leaves, ribbons and tools has been placed at the top of the first of 60 new electricity pylons on the Richborough Connection project, a new 400kV overhead line between Richborough and Canterbury.
The new National Grid 20km line will connect Nemo Link -high voltage electricity cables under the sea between the former Ricborough Towers site and Herdersbrug in Belgium – into the high voltage electricity network.
The project involves subsea cables coming ashore at the service station area at Pegwell Bay, close to where the Thanet Offshore Wind Farm cables come ashore. Once onshore, the underground cables are routed through the Pegwell Bay Country Park and beneath the road from BayPoint Sports Club to the Richborough site.
The first pylon has been built at the junction of Broad Oak Road and Vauxhall Road just outside Canterbury. Engineers from Murphy Ethel Joint Venture (MEJV), used over 5,000 steel parts and 66 bags of bolts to construct it with the aid of a 150-tonne crane. The pylon stands 47m tall and weighs just over 25 tonnes.
The wreath has been placed at the top of the pylon by Polish workers and is part of a Polish tradition called Wiecha. The placing of the wreath at the completion of construction is believed to bring prosperity. It invokes the care of a pagan deity who resides in trees and plants.
I like this story. Despite all the Brexit propaganda against foreigners and immigrants, in the real world the adults get on with the serious work, benefiting from the labour of Polish people and their interesting traditions, linking the electricity grids of the UK and Belgium so that we can assure the flow of power to our homes. The sensible future lies in co-operation between people, not in stirring up nationalist hostilities aimed at keeping the gullible ones stuck in their tribal isolation.
The correct name of JV is Murphy Eltel Joint Venture not Ethel.