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Welcome to Protect Wyre Group.
Fleetwood Civic Society |
Why is this the 3rd Planning Application?
Canatxx presented their last Planning Application which was lacking detail in so many areas that Lancashire County Council were not able to determine it one way or the other even within an agreed and extended time frame.
Canatxx appealed to the Secretary of State against Lancashire County Council's “non-determination” and a Public Inquiry was granted
The Inspector recommended that the Secretary of State turn down the Canatxx appeal, which she did with the following statement….
The Secretary of State in her refusal to allow planning permission ( 16 th October 2007 para. 14) agrees with the Inspector
“that while there is an acknowledged need for more UGS, in the context of the
uncertainties that underlie the suitability of the geology of the Preesall Salt Field to
accommodate the appeal proposal, that national need cannot be extrapolated to mean that there is a specific need for the appeal proposal.”
Canatxx claims that the investigations it has made since the Inquiry are sufficient to show that those uncertainties have been reduced to such a level that there is a specific need in the national interest for its facility at Preesall.
It is quite clear that those uncertainties still exist and Protect Wyre Group still consider the Secretary of State's pronouncement to be valid today. Indeed the uncertainties are now far greater as they have not even defined where they propose to site the caverns.
To muddy the waters, Canatxx have now proposed that they wish to create up to 42 caverns as opposed to the original 24 mentioned in application No 2.
The salt is still the same size; it is the same thickness, at the same depth and covering the same area but Canatxx have almost doubled the number of caverns they propose.
What a pity that they have chosen not to identify where any of these 42 caverns might be sited, how close they might be to each other, what depth they might be at, what size they might be or how close to the edge of the salt they might have to go – let alone if they propose to avoid any of the areas known to have faults and fissures running through them.