SEND 18 May 2013 19:15:49 GMT+01:00

Dear Friends,

Its now just over a week since we all met at Bonvilston Reading Room to express our anger and objections to the proposed plan to drill for gas in Llantrithyd. There were sixty four of us in all including MP Alun Cairns, Councillors Jeffrey James and Philip Clarke, and Andrew RT Davies AM.

YOUR LETTERS AND EMAILS

Many of you have sent copies of your letters of objection to the planning application to villagersagainstdrilling@gmail.com. This has proved to be very informative and will be an invaluable record for us as we move forward. There is no obligation on you to send anything but we would be grateful to be able to add all your voices and objections to our collection.

APPLICATION ‘CALLED IN’

Our thanks to Councillor Jeffrey James who has now ‘called in’ the application to the Planning Committee. This is good news indeed as it will enable transparent and visible scrutiny of the application. The next date set for a Planning Committee is the 6th June but we are yet to hear if Application Ref: 2013/0035/FUL will be on the agenda for that meeting. We will inform you as soon as we know.

THE PRESS

Thanks also to Andrew RT Davies AM who issued a strongly worded Press Release supporting our objections and for writing a formal letter of objection to the Vale Council. The Steering Group issued a Press Release which was picked up and included in an article by Tim Chapman in The Cowbridge Gem.

PLANNING CONSULTANT

Time being of the essence the Steering Group contracted a planning consultant on Monday 13th May. The consultant’s brief is to make contact with the Head of Planning at Vale of Glamorgan Council, register his involvement and formulate a written objection and represent our interests at the Planning Committee. We have already received and reviewed the report and will be submitting it on Monday 20th when we will also release a copy to you. The fee for this work will be £750 plus VAT and disbursements.

YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS

We asked for your help in creating a fighting fund by contributing £25 per person and the response has been fantastic, both last Friday evening and since from local residents and beyond.  To date we’ve received in excess of £1,200 and money is still coming in.  We would like to thank everyone for being so generous and supportive of the cause.  Whilst the fund is sufficient to cover our first major cost, we view this as the start of something with the potential to develop into a long battle.  If you have not yet contributed, but would like to help, we’d be most grateful for your support. Please contact us at  villagersagainstdrilling@gmail.com

OWNERS OF THE PROPOSED DRILLING SITE

It might interest you to know that in the Application Ref: 2013/0035/FUL, Section 26 (Certificate B – continued) it names a company called Evfil Ltd as the owner of the land. A search at Companies House has revealed that the directors of Evfil Ltd, which was incorporated  on 11th January 2013 are; William Philip Thomas, Chartered Surveyor and Evan Williams, Racehorse Trainer. The company’s registered office is at 214 Whitchurch Road, Cardiff,CF14 3ND.

We are led to understand that both of these gentlemen live and work in the Vale of Glamorgan and that both are actively involved in all manner and aspects of agricultural and rural activities.

Steering Group

Villagersagainstdrilling.

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