A gas pipeline is currently being dug into a route running the length of the Cotswolds. With liaison with the contractors, there could be interesting temporary exposures in nearly all the Middle Jurassic. The pipeline's route has been overlaid on to a geological map, and everything from the Lower Lias to the White Limestone/Great Oolite is crossed, in a trench to take the 1-metre diameter pipe. It will all be filled in soon.
Click here if you would like more details of the route.
NOTE: The following reply has been received about this post:
Members of Gloucestershire Geology Trust tried to get access through the AONB but the contractors are so worried about H&S they will not let anyone on site. The trench is dug, the pipe put in and then backfilled very quickly so the heavy machinery carrying the pipe is working all around the area where the trench has been dug.
3 comments:
I logged a gas pipeline some 5 years ago for 5 miles from Barrington to Ilchester. No trouble at all. The environmental guy facilitated access and the workmen looked after me. There were real dangers. I bet the archaeologists could get permission; indeed I bet they were required to be on site and paid on the Cotswold project. There is not a level playing field. For long I have campaigned for a system of 'passports' for recognised academics. Can someone challenge the contractors? Can the Glos Trust do something?
Thanks for this. I saw the pipeline on the TV the other night and my eyes were on stalks at the quantity of fresh-looking limestone (no doubt full of fossils) being churned out and backfilled. In the past I've managed to gain access to similar schemes in Warwickshire, on the back of the county archaeologists. Things won't get any easier though, and it'll be interesting to see what happens next time someone puts in a cross-country pipe in my neck of the woods.
The only way around the trench-logging problem in my experience is personal contact. One needs to persuade the contractor and/or client that
(a) you are a responsible person (backing from the county council/local authority engineers is a help)
(b) that there is good reason for what you are doing (i.e. not just "interesting" or "looking for fossils").
You will still have to go through the usual H&S hoops and fit in with their timetable however inconvenient or time wasting. I would start by looking for support from the county council, local RIGS and Natural England.
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