The situation:
- A firm called Coastal Oil and Gas Ltd has filed a planning application (2013/00335/FUL) to drill an exploratory borehole 1,000m deep on agricultural land beside the Bonvilston to Llancadle road, between the chapel and Caemaen Farm.
- The company has already said that if it finds gas there it is likely to apply to extract it.
The facts:
- This is an inappropriate site for this activity.
- The field in question is in a prominent rural location and opens onto a blind bend on busy country lane with a historically high accident rate.
Within 1km radius of the proposed drill site:
- There have been 15 recorded sightings* of Priority and Protected Species, including the noctule bat, soprano pipistrelle bat, pied flycatcher, common grasshopper warbler, spotted flycatcher, the Eurasian curlew, European turtle dove, northern goshawk and bluebells.
- There are 11 recorded sightings* of Species of Conservation Concern, including the long-eared owl and green woodpecker.
- There are 39 recorded sightings* of Species of Local Conservation Concern, including the Iceland Gull, the wood anemone, agrimony.
- Lies a stretch of Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland*.
(*Source: South East Wales Biodiversity Records Centre (SEWBReC) )
- Lives a family of peregrine falcons*, for more than 10 years now, who are successfully breeding. The peregrine falcon is afforded the highest degree of legal protection under schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
(*Source: The British Trust for Ornithology)
Within just a few hundred metres downhill of the proposed drill site:
- Lies The Llantrithyd Conservation Area, set up in March 1973 to preserve “the character or appearance” of an area of special architectural or historic interest.
The Conservation Area also seeks to protect Nant Llantrithyd brook and the biodiversity and wildlife that surrounds it.
In March 2009 the Directorate of Environmental and Economic Regeneration recommended to the Vale of Glamorgan Council cabinet that:
“Development which impacts in a detrimental way upon the immediate setting of the Conservation Area will be resisted.
“The Council will resist applications for change on the edges of the Conservation Area which would have a detrimental effect on the area’s setting.”*
(*Source: http://www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/living/planning/planning_policy/conservation_areas/llantrithyd.aspx )