Activists moved onto the site and set up camp at 5.30am this morning getting inside part of the pipe itself errecting Section 6 notices whilst others climed onto machines. 3 buldozers 2 cranes

Around 14 police arrived on site at about midday and seem confused as to their role. Ire Jones, the owner of the land where the protestors have taken up residence is fully supportive of the protest, She feels she has been bullied by the National Grid into allowing this pipeline to cut across her land and lied to by them as to the size and scale the project.Therefore it is a civil dispute between the protestors and the National Grid’s contractors; not a criminal matter. However in their actions South Wales Police are acting like a private security firm for the National Grid attempting to negosate protestors off the site and filming heavily. In order to justify their continuing presence they have claimed they are there to “maintain the peace of the protest and to ensure the health and safety of all concerned”

A very bright floodlight is shinnign down on the protestors in the name of health and safety, it along with a very noisey generator is being guarded by 2 police. Police have also errected a roadblock at the bottom of the road leading into the site and are delaying all vechicles entering. It’s manned by two police, with a further two police at the top of the road. All this for what by the police’s own admission is a civil matter.

The pipeline will be 150 miles long from Milford Haven through the Brecon Beacons into England, making it biggest pipeline of it’s kind in Europe. cutting trougth a swathe the width of a motorway.

The area on Ire Jones land that has already been destroyed by the contractors was a forest (with 500 year old oaks) and reclaimed farmland. Trebanos has been designated by the British Geological Survey as an area of Geological instability & National Grid plans to blast the area with explosives.

In other parts of the route the pipeline passes schools and residencial areas. National Grid’s have publicly admissted that it has no experience of running a 48” pipeline at 94bar pressure. Accidents like the massive pipeline explosion that killed 12 campers at Carlsbad, New Mexico in 2000 occurred in remote areas & ran at a much lower pressure.

At present about a dozen people intend to stay on site and block work from continuing but callfor others to come down to the site to get involved!!
For the background on the Liqufied Natural Gas pipeline take a look at “TROUBLE IN THE PIPELINE” in  http://www.southwalesanarchists.org/news/gagged13.pdf