Pipelines in Profusion ?
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FROM OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
TH E Minister of Powers Trunk Pipelines Bill is now expected at the end of this year, or early in 1962. It will set out. right at the start, what are considered to be the basic conditions necessary for the orderly development of this blossoming form of transport. That the Government NIve caught on to the idea is clear by two other things which have just happened.
First, the Transport Bill put forward by Mr. Marples recognizes that railways, railway land and canals will play a big part in the shaping of any grand "main" from which developments will take shape.
The Bill therefore gives powers to the various Boards replacing the B.T.C. to provide and operate pipelines on their land, or to negotiate for others to do so. subject to Ministerial control.
Event No. 2 which has clearly pointed the way is the Minister of Power's decision to allow the Gas Council to start importing Sahara methane into this country.
This gas, which will be shipped here liquefied and frozen, will be piped to its destinations in the lower industrial half of Britain.
A Gas " Grid" The Gas Council has plans for an £18 million project to build a main from the Thames to the Mersey. from which the London. Manchester and Birmingham areas can be served with quantities of this " enricher " gas.
. The main is envisaged as the forerunner of the national gas grid which is being urged on all sides.. This project is aimed at revitalizing the gas industry, which has been warned that it must progress if it is to survive. The plan will have repercuSsions wider than this, however.
A great trunk highway from the Thames to the Mersey was also foreseen in the private Trunk Pipelines Bill which was withdrawn from Parliament last session after a thorough airing.
Prepared by a business consortium, this imaginative project emphasized that the greater part of the consumption of energy in England occurred within 40 miles of their proposed main.
Although the initial idea would be to convey lighter petroleum products and liquefied gases, the route, once established, could if necessary he used to embrace the transporting of other petroleum substances and "other pumpable products."
Important Conclusion Promoters of this Bill reached the important conclusion that, of the 300 miles of pipeline eventually proposed, only 0.61 miles needed to be on land privately owned.
From Denham in Buckinghamshire to the Mersey via Birmingham—the major part of the trunk—the route was planned entirely on the property of British Waterways.
For the rest, from Denham to Canvey, it could be laid mainly on railway and canal land, or by using existing pipeline routes.
The facts elicited by this Bill show that the power given to the component Boards under the new Transport Bill should therefore play a vital part in constructing the first all-purpose trunk pipelines.
It is possible that a multi-purpose route will result from the simultaneous plans now being laid. It appears that the inconvenience to private landowners at least will be practically nil.
It is also probable that many other similar plans will begin to take shape once the Government's plans for control are made known in the next month or two.