rockershovel

It was the biggest pipeline project since the early 90s - the Trans-Lincolnshire line from Immingham to Peterborough is longer - but it's quite conventional in construction and come to that, it is a duplication of the existing route, not a completely new route at all, whatever the local press may have printed at the time. There were some wondrous things to be seen over planning permission for 'barn conversions' ... I used to go out and establish the lines, define heavywall pipe or minor variations in the alignment 'according', and there were 'conversions' which were barely visible as grassed-over foundations in places. the main problems tend to revolve around locals who tend to expect 'oil rig' wages for local work practices, which they are almost invariably disappointed in.

I spent two years in S Wales on a pipeline contract a few years ago and we had no end of trouble with the locals. Had the same thing in Aberdeen in the offshore oil development days, the world had moved on and they didn't want it, or wanted to control it for their own reasons, or simply resented that people were coming in and bringing things which they couldn't get locally. life can be like that