Plans to build a new line of pylons from Norfolk to the Thames at Tilbury in Essex have prompted an outcry over the last couple of years.

As someone who has reported on this, I've always tried to remain objective - but the more I've read and heard about the subject, the more convinced I've become that this line is vital to our future.

And the sooner the National Grid is able to get on and build it the better!

Over the next decade we are facing an energy revolution.

Quite rightly we are aiming to phase out fossil fuels warming our homes and powering the cars, buses and trains that enable us to get around.

We are replacing the energy provided by oil and gas with electricity - largely generated by renewable sources.

That is vital for the future of the planet and it is potentially a real benefit to our local economy with much of this generation taking place on or off the energy coast.

If we don't generate and distribute more electricity, the grid will be unable to cope with the demand we're putting on it.

I'm old enough to remember the grim days of the early 1970s when the miners' strikes meant we had regular power cuts ever day - I don't want that to happen again in the 2030s because were were too busy worrying about where power lines should go 10 years earlier!

I've never really understood the argument that pylons are a dreadful blot on the landscape. I'm 64 years old. I was born and brought up in rural East Suffolk not far from Sizewell, and I don't remember a time when there weren't huge pylons in that area.

But I've never regarded them as particularly ugly - and I've never heard anyone else in that area complaining about them. They're just part of the modern landscape.

If you want to enjoy the benefits of modern living that really is something you have to put up with!

There are arguments the cables should be put underground or out at sea.

But according to the National Grid it would cost four times as much to lay them at sea and I've heard suggestions that it's 10 times as expensive to bury them in the ground.

Is it really fair to expect consumers living on estates around Ipswich, Norwich or any other large city to pay four times more than they need for their electricity transmission just because someone doesn't want to see a pylon 200 metres away from their country cottage?

I know rural MPs have enthusiastically taken up taken up the concerns of those worried about the pylons - and they have done well to represent those concerns.

But if they do succeed in getting the pylons delayed or abandoned and there are power shortages in 10 years' time, what are they going to say if constituents ask why no one had seen this coming?

Finally I've heard concerns from farmers that pylons could ruin their fields. Frankly I don't accept that.

Yes, parts of fields will be more difficult to farm - but I'm sure they will get compensation for that disruption.

And again if you go to East Suffolk you see field after field with pylons in but where farmers quite easily operate around them.

I'm not going to claim that pylons or the wires they carry are objects of great beauty. But they are vital parts of modern life - as vital as roads, railways and housing estates.

If we want to maintain our modern lifestyle while moving to cleaner energy that does not threaten the future of the planet we need to accept that they have a vital role to play for everyone.