PEOPLE living along the route of a proposed gas tanker run have been granted a temporary reprieve after Hampshire County Council deferred a decision pending clarification on some major issues. They are opposed to the controversial application by Petronas Star Energy Group plc, seeking permission to import compressed natural gas by trailer and discharge it at the Humbly Grove oil well site at Weston Common in Lasham where it will be used to generate electricity for the National Grid. The plan is to operate a stream of 55ft long articulated tankers carrying compressed natural gas from Singleton in West Sussex to Weston Common resulting in 12 tanker movements a day (six full, six empty), seven days a week, until 2016. According to TARA, this inflammable gas would be compressed to a pressure of 3,600 pounds per square inch, or 250 times atmospheric pressure. If released, it would expand to a ball of about 250 times the volume of the tanker and, if there was an ignition source, to a fireball which could stretch up to 200 metres in diameter. The trucks would travel from Singleton via Petersfield and up the A32 to the A31 before passing through Alton under The Butts railway bridge and along Whitedown Lane to link up with the A339 towards Basingstoke. They would turn right into The Avenue at Lasham and hence to the Humbly Grove oilfield at Weston Common. While Star Energy's justification for transporting the gas to Humbly Grove is to save the discharge of 30,000 tons of CO2 caused by flaring at Singleton (as prompted by the Environment Agency), TARA argues that the amount of CO2 saved would be negligible when taking into account the burning off in gas turbines at Weston Common and the CO2 emissions generated by the road gas tankers. At the June planning meeting, HCC conceded that this claim by the applicant had not been scrutinised for its accuracy. Nor had the planners received a risk assessment or a report from Hampshire Fire and Emergency Service on the likelihood of a major incident, how they would deal with it or the impact on communities. Concern was expressed over the A339, A32, Whitedown Lane and the Butts railway bridge where an accident would almost certainly put people's lives at risk. Furthermore, TARA claims that if gas were to leak from the Weston Common gas field, depending on the geology and rock strata, it could come up anywhere and affect the surrounding SINC area and, more importantly, residential areas of Alton, Odiham and even Basingstoke. TARA feels that the alternatives to transporting gas in tankers to Weston Common have not been fully explored, and that there should be more thought put into utilising the gas at Singleton. Furthermore, the group has criticised the lack of consultation with parish and town councils along the route. TARA is convinced that the drive behind Star Energy's application is to save money. It would be expected, they say, to cost in the region of £2m to install a gas turbine generator with electrical transmission cable to the nearest National Grid connection point at Singleton.
