NATIONAL Grid is launching legal action against a North Yorkshire widow who is refusing to let it build three pylons on her land.

Lawyers are to go to the High Court in Leeds to apply for an injunction forcing Rosalind Craven to allow the company and its contractors on to her fields at Home Farm, Huby, near Easingwold.

It is the first time the company has had to resort to the courts during the ten-year wrangle over its controversial scheme to build power lines across the Vale of York from Teesside to Shipton-by-Beningbrough.

Other landowners who have previously tried to refuse access to their land backed down after being warned they risked legal action and costs.

Mrs Craven, 61, hit the headlines last month when she saw off National Grid and its contractors, following a half-hour stand-off outside her farm gate.

Backed by more than a dozen supporters, including the local Women's Institute, she refused to stand aside, claiming that she was claiming her constitutional and democratic rights to property, free speech, peaceful protest and to assemble with others.

The company's representatives said they had the right of access, but they eventually retreated in the face of Mrs Craven's defiance, warning that legal action was the likely next step.

She has now been informed in a letter from National Grid's lawyers that an application would be made to the High Court this week.

She told the Evening Press she thought she would have to represent herself, because she could not afford to employ a lawyer. However, she was intending to investigate whether she might be entitled to legal aid because, in her opinion, the case centred around her human rights.

Updated: 11:11 Wednesday, October 16, 2002