The MoD wants to put 27 giant radar dishes in Pembrokeshire, which campaigners have strongly opposed.The MoD wants to put 27 giant radar dishes in Pembrokeshire, which campaigners have strongly opposed.
Image source, Getty ImagesPlans to build a massive 20m-high space radar station in Pembrokeshire will be decided by Welsh government ministers.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) wants to build 27 radar dishes at Cawdor Barracks in Brawdy.
The dishes, standing at 66ft (20m) high and 49ft (15m) wide, would form part of a trilateral AUKUS security partnership with the US and Australian governments.
Fewer than a dozen planning applications, out of about 25,000 in Wales, are called in each year – a process which means ministers make the final decision not a council.
Campaigners People Against Radar Campaign (PARC) – which claimed the project could allow US President Donald Trump to dominate space from Wales – welcomed the move.
The UK government previously said the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) was vital to track objects in deep space and protect satellite and communication and navigation networks.
But PARC said it was “being developed for the US Space Force which was created under Donald Trump at a time when US military spending has doubled since he took office”.
“That is why DARC has been described as a significant escalation in the militarisation of space,” it said.
The Plaid Cymru-led Welsh government declined to comment on calling in the application.
Its website, external said any person could make a request to call in a planning or related application for consideration but it “does not mean it will be refused”.
“The power to call in is used very infrequently and only when a proposal raises issues of more than local importance,” it said.
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