Campaign group fight proposals for space radar installations

A campaign group, fighting against proposals to for a deep space radar dish array in north Pembrokeshire, described as “the United States’ lurch into an attempt to dominate all of space,” has raised more than £1,000.

The UK/US military plans for a 27-dish Deep Space Advanced Radar Concept (DARC) at Cawdor Barracks, Brawdy is part of AUKUS, a three-way security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to build three DARC radar installations around the world, one in each of the three countries.

The radars would track foreign countries’ communications and military satellites in space, so that British, US and Australian aircraft could then destroy them with anti-satellite missiles at will.

Bruce Sinclair Local Democracy Reporter

A scoping report was submitted to Pembrokeshire County Council early last year, as reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which said DARC would track active satellites above the Earth.

That application stated: “The Ministry of Defence has a duty to protect the UK national interest around the world. This includes the Space Domain, which offers both the UK and its Allies an important strategic advantage, but also emerging threats and vulnerabilities that need to be monitored.”

It added: “The Deep-space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) is a United States Space Force (USSF) led programme that aims to set up three geographically dispersed radar sites to increase global Space Domain Awareness with the UK and Australia being offered to host one of the three sites.”

Preferred site

Late last year, Cawdor Barrack was identified as the preferred UK site, with the-then UK Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps.

It was said that retention of the base for DARC would create up to 100 jobs.

The DARC scheme would be subject to an as-yet unsubmitted planning application.

Campaign group, PARC Against DARC is hoping to stop the scheme, describing the proposals as a “monument to the needless, sabre-rattling, expansionist vanity project that is the United States’ lurch into an attempt to dominate all of space, against the stated wishes of almost every nation in the UN”.

PARC (Pembrokeshire Against Radar Campaign) was originally set up back in 90s when the US Military unsuccessfully attempted to build a similar radar installation on the Dewisland peninsula, north Pembrokeshire.

The revamped 2024 operation has launched a change.org petition webpage and an online crowdfunder page, along with social media pages.

History repeats

On the crowdfunder page, which has raised just over £1,000 to date, it says: “In 1991, faced with a near-identical over-the-horizon radar array project barely a couple of miles away in Dewisland, the people of Pembrokeshire formed PARC (Pembrokeshire Against the Radar Campaign), and after one of the most sensational, national and viral UK campaigns of the 1990s, demolished the radar plans, and forced Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher herself to cancel the entire radar project.

“Well, PARC is back—and we’re here to repeat history.

“To pull it off, and defeat the US’s attempt to colonise space in a way that no citizen of the county, the nation or the world has ever voted for, we are going to need all the support and solidarity we can bring together.”

Identifying Cawdor as the preferred site last year, Grant Shapps said: “As the world becomes more contested and the danger of space warfare increases, the UK and our allies must ensure we have the advanced capabilities we need to keep our nations’ safe.”

PARC Against DARC is to is to host a public launch meeting at Solva Memorial Hall at 7pm on June 27.