Let's see if they print it...

Dear Editor,

I read with some dismay that yet again Neath Port Talbot councillors and planners have chosen to ignore the justified and real concerns of the people of Cilfrew and the surrounding area, and vote in a majority to approve National Grid’s application to build a gas pressure reduction station outside their village. As is well known by now, this station is part of a much larger strategic infrastructure project to bring LNG into Milford Haven and pump it under very high pressures to its ultimate destination – the main gas network in England.

To do this, another gas station is being constructed to the north of Swansea, next to the old steelworks site at Felindre. This station, known as a Compressor, will, when completed, be three times the size of its cousin at Cilfrew. It will be fed by not one pipeline, but three, and will sit next to a 400kilovolt electrical substation. It was put for approval before Swansea council at the end of last year and voted through, under very dubious circumstances. Members of the public were forbidden from attending the site visit for “security reasons”.

Given the fact that these stations are being fed by pipelines running at unprecedented pressures, members of the public have every right to be concerned. A few weeks ago, a fire in close proximity to a much smaller pressure reduction valve on an industrial estate near Basildon, Essex, saw emergency authorities and National Grid engineers cordon off the area and erect a 2 mile square exclusion zone. Such a zone, centred on the much bigger Felindre Station, would encompass the Swansea North substations (power supply for much of the Swansea area), the proposed Felindre Strategic Business Park site, Morriston Hospital, and part of the M4. Have planners and councillors in Swansea really thought through the implications?

There may or may not be a valid strategic justification for this whole pipeline project. But when safety concerns and inconsistencies about this project remain unanswered, and parts of this project pose a possible risk to key facilities of strategic value to us, the people of South Wales, we have every right to object, and in the strongest possible terms.

Your Sincerely,


Jim Dunckley.