The Welsh Government does actually have control over certain elements of large projects. So for example the massive “Atlantic Array” Windfarm project in the Bristol Channel will require a Marine License from WG.

In the case of CBM, because elements of these projects full into the ambit of the local planning system, the WG may also be able to “Call In” the application, and hold a public enquiry. They have been asked to do this before, in relation to certain parts of the LNG pipeline project, but opted not to do so.

Nothing to do with the fact that back in 2006, Labour was in power in Westminster as well as Cardiff, which ain’t the case now….

Here is an example from Australia where a
UCG scheme was halted by the state government to prevent major environmental
damage…

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-27/energy-company-to-drop-law-suit-against-government/4847704?section=business

Here are the people behind the scheme (and
others)..

http://cluffnaturalresources.com/projects.aspx

I do think you do have a point about Cynog. He
can’t tell the difference between a community owned turbine like eco-Dyfi and
the Cefn Croes monstrosity. Where local green energy schemes prove successful
there does appear to be ‘project creep’, with the emphasis on the Cynog, and
large scale colonial exploitation parachutes in. The question for Plaid is not
why good-life settlers in grubby sweaters jump on a band wagon, it’s more to do
with whether Plaid can develop a credible energy policy. It would be nice if Plaid could support a drill cap 1.5Mw gas
generator in the car park at Penclawdd. But, it appears, this is not what is
being proposed, and the Welsh Government has no power to control project
creeps.

Here is a link to the Cambridge University press release for the report. Still hunting for the report – but the summary speaks for itself…http://www.cchpr.landecon.cam.ac.uk/news/newsdetail.asp?NewsID=85

I’ll find that Cambridge report for you Jac. As to changes in Gorseinon and further afield, I think there are a number of different reasons. Lots of sais settle here because of Swansea’s growing university population (probably 70% of the uni population are from England) and because Gorseinon is a dormitory town for Swansea professional types relocate here from other places too. Even the retirement element is here simply because generally this area is a nice place to retire too. So there are a number of different reasons.

The bigger issue here is about whether Plaid is some kind of “front” for green hippie types. That is not the case in this area. It’s inevitable that Plaid will to a large extent a “green” party because our landscape and environment are being exploited. Many people today are quite environmentally minded and don’t really want to see the valleys ripped open again for resource exploitation.

And of course above and beyond that is the colonization element. Wales is an “energy colony” that is being used to plug England’s energy gap. In this area we are on the coalfield and consequently you have coal bed methane and UCG. It’s a big issue and down here people are starting to wake up to the scale of it.

OK, obviously you know Gorseinon better than I do, but I’d still like an explanation. Because with the best will in the world I cannot accept that since I left Swansea Gorseinon and Clydach have become hotspots for English retirees or good-lifers, and certainly not for commuters, because they’re too far from any major English city other than Bristol, which is a lot smaller than Merseyside or Manchester.

That being so, and if they are buying their houses, they must be working. But you said in an earlier comment that ” . . . many young families are moving away due to lack of work”. So if there’s no work, where are these new arrivals getting the money from to pay for their houses? Are they taking jobs from locals? Or are they not working, maybe down-sizers, having sold a house in the south east of England? If they’re not working, nor are they downsizers, where the hell is the money coming from? Or, if they are not buying the houses they’re living in, is the arrangement private rental? But even if it is private rental, why move to Gorseinon?

Retirees, good-lifers, commuters, hippies, down-sizers, relocated ex-cons, social security claimants in private or social rents I understand, and I have written about them all at one time or another, but you seem to be describing a new phenomenon. An influx into relatively unattractive satellite towns and suburbs, where there is little work, of a working age population that is taking up new-build private housing. If this is happening on any scale then it could be the best evidence yet for social engineering, so please provide a link to the Cambridge report you mentioned.

Got to disagree here. You hear more and more “accents” around places like Gorseinon now because much of the housing that is being built is in excess of local need. The fundamental issue really is that England is overpopulated and Wales is basically “overspill”. The LDP is basically designed to facilitate this, and the population projections that the Welsh Government are using to impose housing targets on local authorities were examined in a report produced by Cambridge University which conceded that most of this “growth” in Wales was basically in-migration from England (and further afield).

As to local people being opposed to UCG around the Burry Inlet, they are not being heard because many of the most vocal voices at the moment are the usual English hippy-dippy crowd. They are not interested in Wales and the fact that one of them banned people from the “Frack Off” Llanelli group tells us volumes about how “liberal” and “fluffy” some of these people really are. I suspect Paul Jennings is ex-military.

But that doesn’t mean that most of the people concerned aren’t local Llanelli/Loughor/Swansea people. They are, and the great irony of the UCG development in Burry Inlet is that it has woken people up to the Coal Bed Methane exploration work that has been quietly going on up around Bont and Mawr for the last few years. And which Ioan Richard fully supports, because he has opened the door for all this development by supporting the LNG pipeline development.

And why? Because all the boreholes are along the pipeline route…

OK, Stu, I confess I may not have got the right handle on this. But from
my “ivory tower” (J. Dunckley) it ain’t easy. It seems we have two
separate issues: new housing, and underground coal gasification. We also
seem to have two separate groups involved in opposing the UCG; Frack
Off Llanelli (apparently a nimby-colon outfit) and assorted
‘locals’, who are it seems being largely ignored while the media favours
their rivals. Then there is Green Spaces Cymru, some kind of umbrella
group opposed to the building of too many houses. Now I assume that the
same people involved with GSC are also opposing the UCG? There is
obviously an overlap, but where does it finish? Come to that, where does
it start? And where does this leave Plaid Cymru? Plaid’s flyer linking
the two issues, and claiming to be part of GSC, doesn’t clarify things
at all.

The ‘Welsh’ media preferring to broadcast interviews with colons over locals is a separate issue, though one worth exploring. But I still say that if enough locals are making enough noise then they make themselves unignorable.