Forgotten lessons from the Sea Empress

It’s hard to believe that it was 20 years ago last Monday that the Sea Empress became stranded at the entrance to Milford Haven, causing a spillage of 72,000 tones of crude oil and catastrophic damage to the Pembrokeshire coast. Thousands of seabirds were killed and 120 miles of beaches were contaminated, stretching from St Brides Bay around the southern Pembrokeshire coast and into Carmarthen.  Some beaches were buried under a foot of oil. And although the immediate cleanup took place remarkably quickly, at a cost of £60m, it took the best part of a decade before the ecology of the shoreline fully recovered.

 

Sea Empress stranded off St Ann'e Head at the entrance Milford Haven

Such anniversaries always raise the question: could it happen again? Much has improved. In particular a much enhanced port control operation and command structure means the immediate circumstances that led to the spillage would be unlikely to recur. An inexperienced pilot was allowed to guide the Sea Empress in and took her too close to the north shore which led to the grounding. That was on a late Friday evening. By the middle of the following day only about 250 tons of oil had been lost, five Milford Haven tugs had managed to free her from the rocks and there was an option to tow her further out to sea away from immediate danger. The imminence of a Force 9 gale made this a pressing necessity.

The pilot aboard the Sea Empress radioed the Port Authority’s Control Room to ask permission from the Harbour Master and received the following, now infamous reply: “I agree with you but I have a room full of men saying No.” They included men from the salvagers, the oil and insurance companies, the coastguard, and the Department of Transport Pollution Control Unit. Their collective and soon to be mistaken view was that the Sea Empress could be emptied of her cargo where she was and then towed to safety.

In the event the Force 9 gale duly arrived, the towlines connecting the tugs broke and the Sea Empress was thrown about the rocks for twelve hours, losing most of her cargo of crude in the process. As I say, lessons have been learnt from the decisions that led up to this disaster.

But in another respect thre lessons are being forgotten. In the wake of the disaster, emergency towing vessels with much greater capacity than those operating in the Haven, were put in place around the coast of the United Kingdom - at Dover, Orkney, Stornoway, and Falmouth, the last providing cover for the Welsh coast.

However, in 2011 the Conservative government scrapped this fleet, as a cost saving measure, although one tug in Orkney won a reprieve until March this year.  Questioned about this last week, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said, “The government believes that responsibility for ensuring the operational safety of ships is properly a matter for the commercial shipping industry, working in partnership with the tug and salvage industries. It does not believe that it is appropriate for the taxpayer to fund this provision."

Meanwhile, other European countries, including Spain, France, Norway and Germany are maintaining government financed emergency towing vessels. And, of course, since the Sea Empress disaster we have much larger vessels coming into Milford Haven, carrying liquefied natural gas, a much more unstable and dangerous cargo. We’ll just have to hope that this further example of the Conservative government’s ideologically-driven cost-cutting doesn’t end-up in a false economy of cataclysmic proportions.

Wales needs a hydrogen highway

It is extraordinary to think that Wales was most connected internally and with the wider world a century ago, in the years leading up to World War I. In those days it was possible to travel from virtually any point in Wales to anywhere else of significant size by the main means of transport at the time – the railways. And as far as the wider world was concerned our major ports were connected with all points on the globe, with stocks of Welsh coal piled high in South America, Cape Town, China, Japan, and all points in between.

This was the high point of Welsh engagement with the wider world and it was no coincidence either that this was the most prosperous period in our history. It was also a high point for Welsh identity as well. The railways contributed significantly to the developing sense of Welsh nationhood in the golden Edwardian age.

Since then our communications have retreated to such an extent that we are now the most disconnected part of Britain, both within Wales as well as externally to the rest of the world. There is no doubt that this is contributing significantly to our economic problems.

This weekend I shall be speaking about this at Plaid Cymru’s conference in Aberystwyth. I will be seconding a motion being proposed by Cynog Dafis, the former AM and MP for Ceredigion and North Pembrokeshire, calling for a raft of policies to improve communications for Wales.

At present there is a tendency to link the north-east of Wales to Merseyside, mid Wales to the English Midlands, and the south-east to Bristol. Of course, we need good transport links with England to access the markets there for Welsh products. But we also need fast and effective links within Wales to counterbalance the pull to the east.

A glance at the Welsh road network reveals a ‘figure-of-eight’ pattern that links the four corners of the country. Improvements have been made to much of this network, though there remain significant gaps, for instance between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth. In any equivalent European country the network would be dual carriageway throughout. However, in Wales this is only the case along the east-west sections – the A55 across the northern coast, the M4 in the south and its extension to Carmarthen and St Clears– together with the A470 from Cardiff to Merthyr.

We should develop the ‘figure-of-eight’ spinal network by widening the roads to provide hard shoulders to give passing opportunities for faster moving traffic. These hard shoulders would also allow provision of a regular coach public transport service throughout the route. It should become known as a ‘Hydrogen Highway’ service with depots at regular intervals allowing the coaches to use this carbon friendly fuel.

Such innovative, practical and affordable policy thinking follows naturally from applying a national, one Wales perspective to our economic circumstances. That’s what we need, but it has been sadly lacking in Labour’s London-centric approach in the 16 long years it has been in charge of the Welsh Government.

Puffin shuttle’s passport to paradise

Pembrokeshire's Puffin shuttle in action

For me summer always ends precisely on 27 September, the date that marks the end of the Puffin Shuttle’s daily forays around the Pembrokeshire coast. After that it can only be hailed on Thursdays and Saturdays during its winter schedule travelling between St Davids and Marloes.

The Puffin Bus travels a meandering route along St Bride’s Bay to the benefit of the walkers of the county’s glorious coastal path. First thing it sets out from St David’s, calling at Solva, Newgale, Nolton, Druidston, Broad Haven and Little Haven, and St Brides, coming to a halt at Marloes before returning to St Davids.

For me it is a passport for my favourite occupation of walking this stretch of the coastal path. Over the past 30 years and more I reckon I must have hiked it well over 500 times. I have walked it so often that it appears regularly in my dreams. If I can’t get to sleep I imagine I’m striding out on a particular section and count the landmarks before dropping off.

There is something magical where the sea meets the land, sky and weather in an ever-changing vista. Partly it is the light that, in my experience, is only matched on the west coast of Ireland and along the Lleyn peninsula in north Wales. It explains why Pembrokeshire is home to so many artists.

Spring is a joy when the whites, blues, pinks and reds of the wild flowers and the bright yellow of the gorse carpet the land with a veritable rainbow of colour. At the height of summer the tall grass and hot damp air deliver a heady experience better than any beverage I know. Even in winter walking in the gales that hammer the coast is an exhilarating thing to do. Rough seas, dark threatening clouds and driving rain will transport you from the day to day. 

Walking the path on a regular basis inevitably reveals the permanent inhabitants. The bird life is extraordinarily varied. Apart from the swooping seabirds there are finches, tits, and curlews, plus the occasional wren, robin and blackbird. The best place for skylarks is St Brides where if you lie in the grass for long enough you’ll see them against the sky before they plummet to the earth.

Rabbits are common. Occasionally a badger appears. Late one evening I was startled by one in Bluebell Wood near Little Haven. I don’t know who was most taken aback, he (or she) or me. For a split second we stared at each other before the badger dived into the scrub below. At this time of year you might see a newly born seal pup in a closed stony inlet anywhere along the southern part of the coast. Once I caught a glimpse of a line of dolphins, from a cliff north of Broad Haven, skimming through the water with their dorsal fins occasionally breaking surface.

So as autumn turns to winter and the days ahead are shortening, I’m looking forward to 3 May next year when the Puffin Shuttle begins its schedule seven days a week and summer begins.

Unfairness of the pesky parking tax

Few things are more calculated to provoke irritation and opposition in Pembrokeshire than car parking charges in our town centres. Witness the 8,893 people who signed a petition against them in St Thomas Green near the centre of Haverfordwest. Or the people from Goodwick who protested outside County Hall last week against proposals to charge in the town’s Station Hill car park.

Why is the opposition so intense in this part of Wales when elsewhere, especially in city centres like Cardiff and Swansea, charging for parking is long established and relatively uncontroversial? Pembrokeshire Council’s Head of Paid Services Ian Westley says its because nobody wants to pay for something they aren’t already paying. But it’s not that simple.

There’s a clue in one argument against the proposals to charge in St Dogmaels’ High Street. Local councillor Mike James said, “St Dogmaels is a village not a town and it is not somewhere where people come to shop or browse.” He added that the community was being treated like Narberth and Haverfordwest and that was not fair.

There is a sense in Pembrokeshire that all our villages and towns are in a similar position, certainly in comparison with large urban centres in southeast Wales. For instance, many people who pay for car parking in Cardiff are commuters or shoppers who live outside. For them parking fees operate as a congestion charge. And people who live close to or inside cities have a real alternative choice with public transport. If they’re over sixty they can use their free bus pass.

It’s not the same in rural Wales. Here many people have no choice but to travel by car. For them parking charges are in effect just another tax, and one that does not vary according to their ability to pay.

It is noteworthy that a while ago the Welsh Government stopped the NHS from imposing charges in hospital car parks. The argument was that it was unfair to impose charges on outpatients and people visiting friends or relatives in hospital. The same certainly applies in Goodwick where the Station Hill car park is widely used by patients at the adjoining Health Centre.

There’s another consideration, too. Many of our towns are run-down with shops boarded up, to a great extent the result of the poor planning by the county that has led to a rash of out-of-town developments. Imposing parking charges in town centres will only make this worse.

So what could be an alternative income for our cash-strapped council for which, as Ian Westley says, “every little helps”? How else could the council collect the £12m it hopes to raise from the proposed new parking charges? We urgently need to up-date the value of properties across the county, the basis upon which council tax is calculated. The last such re-valuation in Wales was in 2005. Since then the value of properties has risen considerably. An up-to-date re-evaluation would result in putting more properties into higher tax bands. It would mean asking the better off to pay a bit more. That would be a fairer way to raise the money Pembrokeshire needs.