Stop the pipeline! info flyer + events this week (& second camp started)

Stop the Pipeline!!
Land and homes across Wales are cur­rent­ly being destroyed for a huge, unsafe gas pipeline. Is this the best way to tack­le cli­mate change?

What’s wrong with the pipeline?

The pipeline will be 150 miles long from Mil­ford Haven through the Bre­con Bea­cons into Glouces­ter, mak­ing it the biggest pipeline of its kind in Europe, cut­ting a chunk the width of a motor­way. Despite con­cerns about on going cli­mate chaos the gov­ern­ment is putting their ener­gy and resources into dig­ging up beau­ti­ful coun­try­side and people’s homes for more non-renew­able ener­gy, rather than build­ing for alter­na­tives like solar, wind and hydro pow­er.

Locals groups have formed in resis­tance to the pipeline. Many feel they have not been prop­er­ly con­sult­ed, some feel bul­lied and deceived, on an issue that affects them direct­ly, with some peo­ple hav­ing their homes com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased. There have also been many safe­ty con­cerns as peo­ple feel the gov­ern­ment have rushed plans through with­out prop­er health and safe­ty checks. For exam­ple, it’s being built on the only earth­quake zone in Britain, parts of it is on land that’s deemed too unsta­ble for hous­es and the gas is odour­less so locals wouldn’t know if there was a leak. In Tre­banos, near Swansea, it was decid­ed the land was too unsta­ble for mains gas pipelines to the vil­lage and now they’re build­ing Europe’s biggest gas pipeline!

What’s been hap­pen­ing this week?

Due to the absur­di­ty of these plans, and the fact that no amount of cam­paign­ing has had an effect, peo­ple have recent­ly tak­en direct action to stop work along the pipeline. At 5.30am last Mon­day (12th Novem­ber) activists entered the work­site with some peo­ple climb­ing on to machin­ery and oth­ers occu­py­ing parts of the pipeline. The pro­tes­tors have claimed squatter’s rights on a sec­tion of pipeline and have suc­cess­ful­ly stopped work since Mon­day. On Thurs­day 16th anoth­er protest site was start­ed by con­cerned fam­i­lies in Mil­ford Haven in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the pro­tes­tors in Tra­banos. There is also a green rib­bon cam­paign for locals to show sup­port for the protest.

What next?

A mass bike ride has been orga­nized for Fri­day 24th Novem­ber to raise aware­ness and show oppo­si­tion to the gas pipe line. Meet out­side Y Mochyn Du pub in Sophia gar­dens at 3.30pm.

More peo­ple are join­ing the camps as we speak but help and sup­port are always need­ed, any­one with spare time is wel­come to join in.
For reg­u­lar updates and infor­ma­tion see www.indymedia.org.uk