Pipeline protests continue

More than 250 Corse and Tirley residents packed into a public meeting to hear how Campaign Against Pressure Reduction Installation members will battle against National Grid. Forest of Dean District Council through out the plans last year so residents will now go head to head with the gas company at a public inquiry in April. Read the latest from The Citizen here and links to most recent Glos Green party news release here.

I've been following the story closely as I have had contact with various groups along the whole route of the planned pipeline. I hear that on Valentine's day pipeline activists brought work to a halt at Milford Haven. It took police many hours to cut every one free and eventually make their thirteen arrests.

Photo: inside the pipe – taken by squatter – shows unprotected weld. Is this normal?

The 120-mile project cuts a nearly motorway-sized swathe through from Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire to Tirley in Gloucestershire. Sections of the ground along the route has been deemed unsuitable for building houses on, with some living nearby refused even having domestic mains gas - yet this giant main pipeline which even industry experts predict will suffer at least one crack in its lifetime is being built through these areas.

In November the first protest camp was established, now camps have sprung up at Milford Haven, Trebanos and Cilfrew, with locals and activists regularly disrupting work. January saw a number of actions, including at a new location at Alltwen, Pontardawe - where people chained themselves to machinery in order to stop the work carrying on the other side of the valley from the Trebanos camp.

On February 7th, the DTI announced approval for the start of phase II of the environmentally damaging project, across the Brecon Beacons heritage site - which the national park authority called a "huge blow".

One activist is quoted as saying: "Milford Haven is supposedly a potential target for terrorists. Yet this pipeline will commit us to another thirty years of fuelling a cause of terrorism: Western corporations taking countries' gas to expand consumption and their profits. This is not just a Welsh problem it is an international one! We all know about the effects of carbon dioxide on climate change - with the UKs main contributor being Gas!".

The protestors continue...Now the DTI is proposing to license oil exploratory drilling in sites of special conservation just off the coast of Wales. Local campaign Group S.O.S. have succeeded in delaying the granting of licenses through widespread local discontent.

Read more on the Green Culture blogspot especially 11th Feb blog.