RAP LAUNCH WEBSITE www.nogasplant.co.uk

Monday March 4th was a big day for protest group RAP in their campaign to stop Scottish Power planting a chemical-industrial complex in the heart of rural Cheshire. Speaking to an audience including journalists and photographers, RAP Chairman John Halstead, said: "Through www.nogasplant.co.uk RAP will reach a vastly wider audience than ever before to make our reasoned case against Scottish Power's Gas Plant II - demolishing some of their nonsensical claims, such as the statement that Britain needs the plant. Britain doesn't need it. Only Scottish Power needs it - to make money for Scottish Power." John Halstead went on to advertise RAP's public meetings - open to all - at 6.30 pm Goostrey Village Hall on Friday March 15th, and 6 pm Cranage Conference Centre, Saturday March 16th.

Then, dropping a massive bombshell on Scottish Power's technical case, RAP asked "Where's the Salt?", a profound safety question about Scottish Power's plans, which either ignore or are ignorant of best practise set by British Gas Storage - the only UK body with expertise in this area, and who have long since considered and rejected Cheshire as a fit site for underground gas storage. This is because, for underground gas storage in salt strata, British Gas Storage require 100 metres of solid salt around and beneath each gas cavity, and then 4.5 cavity diameters between each cavity. But the cavities Planned by Scottish Power are much closer than this, and worse still, there'd be nothing like 100 metres of salt beneath the cavities: perhaps only a few metres. So nobody - but nobody - knows if Scottish Power's gas cavities will be safe, because if there isn't enough salt to secure the cavities, we're into the unknown, with completely unpredictable reactions from unknown strata, deep down below. Said RAP Press Spokesman Dr John Edwards: "This is frightening. If amateurs like us can work this out, then why can't Scottish Power? It looks like they haven't done their homework. And remember, it's not RAP that demands 100 metres of salt around gas cavities - it's standards published by British Gas Storage. So we're asking Scottish Power: where's the salt?"