The Battle for Walham

Jon Snow Channel 4 - News - Snowmail 5-22pm

I've been focusing on the extraordinary battle to save the switching station at Walham.

This is a much more sensitive plant than we had at first imagined. Channel 4 News has learned that in addition to the 600,000 people who depend upon it for their supply, it also happens to supply GCHQ - the intelligence monitoring centre at Cheltenham. Oh, and it is a major transit point for electricity direct to the atomic research establishment at Aldermaston.

One wonders whether this perhaps was one of the other reasons that triggered an emergency meeting of Cobra, the ministerial taskforce, last night?

My trip inside Walham today was incredible. The human endeavour to save the place is nothing short of heroic and so too is the forward planning that committed the authorities to buying 50 massive German pumps - each which does the work of 10 fire tenders. This was done just 12 weeks ago.

Without these pumps Walham would have been lost.