Move to put power lines underground under way
PLANS for a more welcoming vista in Lake Hawea are galvanising the local community.
Hawea Community Association chairwoman Cherilyn Walthew said about 60 people at their most recent meeting voted ‘‘pretty overwhelmingly in favour’’ of removing power poles and placing power lines underground on Lakeview Tce and Capell Ave.
The project had been split into two parts, a design phase and a build phase.
‘‘What we have voted to do is push through with the design phase.’’
The association would underwrite funds up to $35,000 to allow design work to begin, with plans for fundraising to recoup that cost.
Putting powerlines underground had ‘‘been on the list’’ for some time, and were mentioned in the Hawea Community Plan developed in 2003, Ms Walthew said.
The association had met with electrical infrastructure and contractor companies including Delta, Connetics and ElectroNet, and had also met with Aurora Energy.
Out of these discussions and other research they had estimated it would cost about $2.7 million plus GST to remove power poles.
‘‘If we get the design and it is way off costing what we thought, then we might decide not to do the build, or it might give us an indication about who we might speak to about this.’’
The design phase would include looking at the effects of digging beneath established gardens, and completely removing or ‘‘slimming down’’ some of the power poles so they were less intrusive.
There were many factors to consider including width of the road, footpaths and choices that individual property owners could make regarding power to their house.
‘‘If someone wants to underground their power from the fenceline to the house and they haven’t done so already it might be cheaper to actually link in with us when we are doing that.’’
The design would provide the association with ‘‘more of a knowledge base’’ when speaking to Aurora Energy, Ms Walthew said.
At time of print Aurora Energy had not responded to a request for comment.