A row over an electricity pylon on the edge of the South Downs National Park has been reignited in Westminster more than 30 years after it was first installed.

Transport officials in the Seventies stand accused of betraying people in Southerham by secretly reneging on a promise that the pylon was temporary.

It was built in 1974 to enable the diversion of an underground power cable while the A27 Southerham bypass was built.

The move sparked angry protests from local residents, causing the Department of Transport to pledge it would be gone within 12 months.

But the pylon has remained to this day after transport officials later decided that it would be too expensive to replace the cable underground.

Resident Spencer Page, 41, said: "It is a blot on the landscape. We are also worried about health risks.

"I have spoken to Lewes MP Norman Baker about it and we all want something be done."

Steve Grint, 45, and Alison Cannon, 35, have just moved to Southerham.

Mr Grint said: "When we bought the house we took a gamble that the pylon would be taken down. If we thought it was permanent we wouldn't have bought the house.

Miss Cannon added: "It not only looks horrible but it makes a horrible buzzing noise when it rains. There is already some cabling underground so we think the pylon should be moved."

Norman Baker has now brought the issue to the attention of ministers in a bid to put right the "historic injustice" as part of planned new works.

He told the Commons: "The pylon should have been removed 30 years ago. It was not - in order to save a small amount of public money.

"In doing that, it left a pylon that is a scar on the landscape, is in a temporary and, in my view, not terribly stable position - it is on the edge of a cliff - and is visible for miles around.

"It needs to be moved and the A27 works provide the opportunity to do that."

Transport minister Derek Twigg said that the public inquiry last year into the A27 works had heard appeals to remove the pylon and the inspectors' report was expected by the end of this month.

But he added there were "competing cost pressures" on the Highways Agency's budget.

"The costs of diverting the overhead supply to the pylon are still sizeable, and high in relation to the £18.3 million cost of the A27 scheme."