MORE than 1,000 people have now signed up to oppose plans to build a power station in Cresswell.
Around 50 people heard how our campaign against plans for the proposed gas-fired station Blythe Park industrial estate is gaining momentum.
As well as gathering 850 names on a written petition and another 170 objections on the Number 10 website, the group has:

Yesterday shoppers in Hanley were left more than a bemused after a silent rave outside the Potteries Shopping Centre.

A handful of people stopped to make twist, tap and make shapes on the stroke of yesterday.

Hundreds were signed up to the Facebook group although it looks as though many were deterred by the day's rain, which luckily stopped for the event.

That said, we attracted another 50 signatures to the ever-growing list of people against the proposals.

Today a formal application was presented to the Department for Energy and Climate Change for plans to build the power station in Cresswell.
This will be a wake-up call for anyone who thought it was just a bad dream, and should act as a further impetus to work harder in our fight to those who have been working behind the scenes.
We will post the full details of the application when we have them.

Following the public at St Margaret's Church, it's clear that not all residents are aware of the information which has been made available about the proposals.
 
Here is a report from the Government's Department for Energy and Climate Change in response to Blythe Park Power's initial scoping report.
And here are several pages of response from the Environment Agency with their views on the proposals as they stand.
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A small taste of the sort of problems that Cresswell might face should Blythe Park Power's plans for the power station go ahead were shown over the past couple of days.
Anyone driving through the village will have noticed a trail of mud from the industrial park entry, over the crossing and up the hill.
 

We've now created some posters to flag up the next meeting of the residents against the power station.
Put them up and show that you don't want Blythe Park Power to go ahead with their plans.
 
 
SAY NO!

There's going to be a change of venue for the next public meeting about the power station proposals.
It had been planned to go ahead at St Margaret's Church in Draycott on October 7. However, it has now been rearranged to October 21.
 
 

Our local county councillor Mike Maryon is continuing to help our case against the power station tomorrow.
He told last night's meeting of Draycott Parish Council that he would be meeting officers from the county's highways and environmental departments for their opinion on the site's suitability for such a development.
Hopefully, we should be able to give you an update on the website tomorrow after that meeting.

We've had further evidence from the Staffordshire Moorlands District Council about the lack of support for the Blythe Park Power plans.
A request made under the Freedom of Information Act reveals two letters sent out by the authority in response to correspondence from the developers.
The first, dated April 8, highlights several grounds why the authority's head of planning is concerned about the proposals including its visual impact in a rural environment, ecological issues, highways and so on.

The Sentinel has picked up on our story about Prince Charles being asked to support the campaign to stop this power station. You can read the full story on the link in the previous sentence, but the thrust of the article is that a group of children are doing their bit for the campaign by creating T-shirts and the letter to the future monarch to show their fear about what the proposals might do to the area in which they live.