Protestors quickly climbed trees and have locked themselves together high up in the trees using bicycle D locks while others have gone down into tunnels they dug with food to last for several days. This is in order to delay National Grids multimillion pound destructive and dangerous project. Two protestors who were locked on the ground have been arrested.

One protestor has today said "We are willing to risk arrest as the consequences of this pipeline will be far more devastating than spending a night in a police cell. National Grid, as a private company, are putting shareholder profit before peoples saftety, both locally and more globally. We are putting ourselves in the way to say this is completely unacceptable."

Another protestor, from Bristol Rising Tide said "The Government, National Grid Plc and other Corporations are continuing to build and profit from fossil fuel infrastructure despite the clear fact that to prevent catastrophic climate chaos, carbon emissions must be cut by 90% by 2030. So it is up to people to take responsibility and take
action and that is why I am here doing what I can to stop this being built."

The road from Brecon to Sennybridge, which runs past the camp, has been closed by the police.

Contact:
Bristol Rising Tide: 07917 383517


Notes to Editor

Rising Tide is a climate action network dedicated to challenging the root causes of climate change - the fossil fuel growth based economy. Rising Tide argues that climate chaos is an issue of social injustice and that the poorest will suffer most.
This pipeline, 4ft in diameter, will run at 94bar pressure – that is 96kg/cm2. National Grid have no experience of running pipelines at such high pressure and it is unprecedented in Europe and the US.

In 1999, a family of four were killed in Scotland when a high pressure gas pipe exploded by their home. Massive corrosion in the pipeline, and a failure on the part of National Grid/Transco (NG/T) to keep adequate records on what kind of pipes were being used, led to the explosion. Corrosion has already been seen on the welds in the South Wales pipeline.

Since privatisation, NG/T have shed thousands of engineering jobs and cut maintenance work. In 2000 it was revealed that Transco had underspent its agreed pipeline maintenance and replacement programme
by £358m over the previous two years. This same corporation, accountable to only its shareholders and board, is now supposedly responsible for the safety of thousands of people along the route of
this pipe.

300 Construction workers at the Dragon LNMG terminal were recently on strike over safety concerns on site. One workers was hospitalised and workers were demanding safer working conditions.