RESIDENTS in Clayton-le-Moors are stepping up their campaign to have five 'eyesore' pylons replaced with an underground cable.

Eight months ago the Department of Trade and Industry was called in to review the overhead line, which runs from Huncoat to Clayton-le-Moors.

United Utilities, responsible for the 33 kilovolts line, has put forward two alternatives at the request of the DTI. One is to have part of the line overhead and part underground, and the other to re-route the cables entirely underground.

Ernest Goodyear, a partner of chartered surveyors Goodyear Williams, acting on behalf of the residents, said they were not asking for the whole line to be replaced, just the stretch from where the M65 crosses Whalley Road to the English Electricity substation on the nearby industrial estate. The line, installed in 1940, runs from the former Huncoat power station to the former GEC works at Clayton.

The move to have it put underground was backed by developers when they applied to build at least 100 new homes at Sefton Fold Farm, in the Burnley Road area, near Clayton-le-Moors.

Mr Goodyear said: "The main argument against this overhead line is its visible impact on an urban environment. There is a perception that these things do cause a health risk."

A spokesman for United Utilities said: "We are not given money to take down overhead lines that are in perfect working order. We do replace old cables sometimes but there is nothing wrong with these lines".