We had a day of PEDL, CAR, PPC, MEW and other TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms).* This was the first day of hearing sessions – parties sitting around the table having a discussion rather than individual witnesses being grilled for hours. …
Inquiry day 9 – defunct companies, carbon budgets and planning for the climate
Douglas Bain, in charge of the UK for Dart spoke this morning – after 8 days this was the first time anyone got to question someone actually from Dart Energy rather than their consultants. Mr Bain made much of the …
Inquiry day 8 – Planning, energy policy and wishful thinking
Dart’s planning expert spent all day at the witness table today, several hours of it under the politely merciless scrutiny of our lawyer. Dart tried to go through all the historical sites for which they still had current planning permissions. …
Inquiry day 7 – climate, health and planes
The other side tried to play games today, with our questioning under time pressure because we were told their air quality and climate witness had to leave by 10. After follow up questions by the reporters and Dart’s QC he …
Inquiry day 6 – Cultural heritage and climate change
Today Concerned Communities of Falkirk got the opportunity to put Cultural Heritage, from participation to community values, in front of the Inquiry. Input ranged from a very personal account of concern over the threat to a local resident’s dream home …
Inquiry day 5 – frogs and toxic rain
Today was the first day at Falkirk Stadium, rather more cramped than last week’s venue, but with much more reasonable prices for tea … Today’s special session took video evidence from Australia from toxics expert Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith and GP …
Inquiry day 4 – big beasts
We started the day with Dart’s witness on leaking methane saying that you can never get two geologists to agree. One of the undercurrents over many months has been the rivarlry between RPS and AMEC – two big beasts of …
Inquiry day 3 – Geology and Punk Rock
After 15 hours over two and half days of Dart’s witnesses we finally got to hear from a witness from the objectors, Emeritus Prof David Smythe from Glasgow University. He covered errors in which way faults ran and where the …
Inquiry day 2 – slow and careful …
Today was a slow day of carefully and thoroughly picking over lots of details about geology and hydrology from Dart’s witnesses, who had a pretty painful time. So slow that the timetable is already slipping and we will likely need …
Dart Energy public inquiry opens
Protestors with placards welcomed the parties and witnesses to the Public Local Inquiry into Dart Energy’s proposals for Coal Bed Methane this morning at the Inchyra Hotel (lovely view of the petrochemicals plant out the back). The BBC and STV …
Nuclear power, still no thanks
I grew up in Devon and my father fought against the proposed new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point in neighbouring Somerset, including attending the lengthy public inquiry in the late 1980s. Sadly, the government learnt from this experience and made …
A wasted decade
Last year Glasgow and Dundee councils had to declare the whole of each city as pollution zones. Last month Edinburgh added new zones and extended the existing ones. In almost all of Scotland’s urban areas air pollution, overwhelmingly from traffic, …