Tewkesbury campaigners fear plant extension

By rjenkins robin jenkins robin.jenkins@glosmedia.co.uk

Campaigners trying to prevent a gas plant being built in Gloucestershire near Tewkesbury fear the National Grid is already thinking about extending it in the future.

Members of the pressure group Campaign Against Pressure Reduction Installation (CAPRI) are fighting the company's plan to install a pressure reduction installation (PRI) close to Flat Farm, in Tirley.

They fear it would ruin the countryside and put residents' lives at risk in an accident or as part of a terrorist attack.

Earlier this month, CAPRI criticised the National Grid for trying to acquire land for the plant via compulsory purchase orders.

If it can build the plant, it will be able to take full advantage of a 200-mile pipeline that could carry up to 20 per cent of the UK's gas supplies from south Wales to Gloucestershire.

In a statement, CAPRI said: "We suspect the compulsory purchase of 40 acres of land is really intended to provide National Grid with 23 acres of land which are not required now for the PRI but which would enable it to be enlarged in the future."

CAPRI wants the company to agree to sell the extra land back to the landowner if it is allowed to build the PRI.

The lobby group said: "If National Grid's claimed purposes are genuine, then we call on it to publicly give the owners of the land a legally binding undertaking."

The group says the deal would see the National Grid transfer the 23 acres back to the owners at the same price it paid for them if the PRI is built.

National Grid declined to comment on CAPRI's suggestion but, in a statement, said: "We expect Tewkesbury Borough Council to have made a decision on our planning application well in advance of any decision on our CPO.

"The CPO must cover all the land required to complete the PRI. As such we have had to include land which falls outside our planning application, but which is required as a temporary storage area and yard during the construction period.

"This land will be returned to agricultural use on completion of the PRI. We can only develop the land in accordance with the planning application, if it is granted by the council."