Politics
PARC Against DARC accuses MOD of ‘sneaking through’ radar infrastructure
Campaigners from PARC Against DARC are accusing the Ministry of Defence of a series of potential moves to split out planning elements required for the DARC radar proposal without including them in the main planning application. They say legal precedents show this practice may be unlawful.
A PARC Against DARC spokesperson said:
We haven’t come across a single person who doesn’t think the whole story behind the RDF aircraft tracker relocation proposal that’s just been tabled, the inexplicably high-security landing cable station, the unanimously unpopular £60m Newgale bypass road and required power cable upgrades for miles just stinks to high heaven.
After 37 Senedd and Westminster politicians have come out against DARC, a petition of 18,000 signatures and public demonstrations that have gone viral online, the MOD seems to be looking for any way it can to ‘salami slice’ the massively unpopular DARC plans and try to ram them through planning against the local community’s will. We think that this would be both unlawful and wrong.
Follow the DARC Money
The spokesperson continued:
DARC admits to funding the new RDF aircraft tracker in the application. The MOD’s environmental screening document states clearly that relocating the RDF has been part of DARC’s plans, and the only reason it gives as to why it was excluded from them was because DARC were assured that its relocation would be completed prior to DARC’s construction.
It even goes as far as clearly implying DARC is paying off who it needs to to expedite the relocation of the RDF, using distracting language to hide these realities behind the operational separation between the two projects.
It just leaves you with the question: why does it appear as if money has been changing hands in order for this aircraft tracker to be done and dusted at all costs before DARC is potentially started, if not for the reason that the application is blatantly linked to DARC, and yet unjustifiably is not being considered part and parcel of it?
We strongly question whether the MOD’s attempts to escape reality would stand up in court, and we are disgusted with PCC for issuing a screening opinion that throws the Pembrokeshire people it’s meant to stand up for completely under the bus.
The MOD’s screening request for the upgraded aircraft tracker includes no environmental assessment for radiofrequency radiation impacts to local people and livestock, which means it fails to consider the cumulative impact of what would be that plus DARC’s radiation.
Considering we’ve found over 4,000 studies showing the type of radiation DARC would emit is linked with health impacts including cancer, and that the MOD has ignored nine whole freedom of information requests from us, the fact the MOD refuses to release a scrap of meaningful data on DARC’s huge potential radiation risks for our community leaves people here furious and disgusted.
All they can ever keep trotting out in response is the widely-criticised regulator ICNIRP and a tiny department of the WHO that’s completely riddled with telecoms and military lobbyists.
Suspicious ‘high-security’ undersea cable leads directly to DARC site
It gets even worse though, say campaigners:
There’s a strong public perception that the sea cable landing station they’re now building metres away from the gates of Cawdor Barracks, despite being said to be civilian, would actually be likely to supply DARC with data from overseas as well.
There’s an identical one proposed near Roch using the other one of the two new sea cables coming, but unlike that one, the Brawdy station features razor wire, security guards with on-site parking and CCTV cameras.
The MOD won’t explain why it could possibly need any of this, but if you consider that Brawdy was involved in the SOSUS programme which literally covered up the fact that the British military was concealing that its sea cables were for civilian use when in fact they were tracking submarines, you can see why locals are sceptical.
If they’re right, none of this was ever going to be included in DARC’s potential upcoming planning application, making that application seem less consequential than it would really be.
Newgale bypass with DARC links
The Newgale bypass road has recently suffered another 18 month delay due to a public consultation response that almost unanimously rejected the entire proposal. According to PARC Against DARC, nearly everyone they’ve spoken to believes that the road:
had to have been connected to DARC, because it was so implausible that they could construct and operate such a large-scale military site using tiny backroads that would cause traffic bottlenecks from all sides. This was not factored into DARC’s scoping report either.
Silence surrounds DARC Pylons
Campaigners add that on top of that, documented talks between the MOD and PCNPA show that the MOD has so far failed to include in any publicised planning materials what could be extensive pylon-based or underground network power upgrades it admits could be required for DARC:
It just seems to us like the MOD is dripping with the kind of perceptions of corrupt practice in the local community that the DARC fiasco has become so well-known for in the St Davids peninsula.
The MOD, from the start and throughout, has proven itself to be a government ministry that seems to do nothing but railroad communities, flouting both strongly held public opinion and potentially the law to get what it wants.
DARC opposition set to be ‘hot topic’ at the ballot box
With the Senedd election just ten weeks away and with two of the main contenders in Plaid Cymru and the Wales Green Party both having come out very firmly against DARC as party policy, campaigners say:
Labour locally risks destroying its voter base even further if they fail to recognise the huge levels of local opposition to the proposals and change course.
They add:
The Labour governments on both sides of the border that are presiding over DARC have been an utter shambles, and FM Eluned Morgan and MP Henry Tufnell have been as silent as the grave on DARC since day one.
With a move to proportional representation, voting for 16-18s and an increase from 60 to 96 MSs in the upcoming Senedd elections, it’s looking ever more likely that Labour will be completely wiped out and a progressive ‘Anti-DARC’ government will form the next administration in Wales, so we believe Labour has everything to lose on this key election issue if they fail to about turn.
Featured image (artist’s impression) via PARC Against DARC