LOCALS AND CLIMATE CHANGE CAMPAIGNERS GIVE A STERN WARNING TO “NATIONAL QUID”.

A coalition of local people and climate change campaigners, fed up with the environmental destruction being wreaked on the area by National Grid’s massive new pipeline, have set up a “Climate Change” Protest Camp along the route of the pipeline on Mynydd Gellionnen, behind the village of Trebanos.

The aim of the new camp will be to highlight the ecological damage done to the area by National Grid’s contractor Nacap Land and Marine, and present a positive, ecologically sound alternative. The campaigners have been invited to pitch camp on the land of local landowner Ira Wynne Jones, of Ty’n y Pant farm, who says she was totally misled by National Grid about the scale of the development they were proposing, and is appalled by the damage done to an area she grew up in as a child.

A spokesman for the Safe Haven Network, who wholeheartedly support the move said; “ Ira Wynne Jones is an elderly lady who was misled by this company into believing this was only a routine project and the impact would be minimal. In the event, they have torn down ancient woodland and torn up prime farmland to railroad through this massive, unsafe development. Ira has invited campaigners to pitch camp on her land to highlight the lack of democracy here and the sheer destruction wreaked by National Grid. It’s very much a case of “Rape of the Fair Country” Mark 2.

“Climate Change, meanwhile, is a serious and pressing issue, and National Grid’s plans for this pipeline will only contribute to it. They have destroyed numerous forested areas along this pipeline route, removing important carbon sinks, and as the recent Stern report points out, gas distribution is the single most carbon intensive sector of the economy and is reponsible for a huge proportion of our greenhouse gas emissions.”

“The UK government and the Welsh Assembly should be supporting renewable energy projects, and we fail to see how a Welsh Assembly which has a constitutional commitment to sustainability can support a project which offers no long-term ecological, economic, or social benefit to the people of Wales. This destructive project should be scrapped, and we need a new government in Wales which will stand up for our communities, and stand up for our environment.”


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