WYRE residents fighting plans to store gas under a nearby river have had an 'extremely successful' meeting with government officials in London.

Campaigners Ian Mulroy and Howard Phillips of Protect Wyre Group (PWG) met in Westminster on Friday with Blackpool North and Fleetwood MP Joan Humble and Lancaster and Wyre MP Hilton Dawson. The group then met with DTI officials, including a special advisor to energy minister Mike O'Brien MP, to voice concerns over plans by business consortium Canatxx to store gas in caverns under the Wyre estuary.

BBC North West also filmed PWG's visit for a 'people power' feature on Sunday lunchtime's Politics Show.

"The meeting gave PWG the opportunity to refute the claims made by Canatxx on gas volumes and on safety and we received assurances from the DTI that this was anything but a done deal," said Mr Mulroy."The group used information from independent surveys, from Byley in Cheshire and from the USA to produce a comprehensive report to show the DTI how we though the Canatxx proposal was seriously flawed and how we thought that this proposal was not in the national interest."

He added: "We went expecting to find that it was going to be a done deal and we thought we were going to be fobbed off but it's anything but a done deal, I'm very convinced of that. We were taken very seriously."

And he urged the public to keep sending written objections to the plans to Lancashire County Council.

Howard Phillips said the 90 minutes meeting was 'extremely successful'. But campaigners were worried that the DTI's high profile Joint Energy Security of Supply (JESS) Report was apparently quoting figures supplied by potential energy suppliers, without checking them. The DTI said that they did not have the expertise to verity the claims that Canatxx were making," he said, adding that the group hoped the DTI would now start checking figures given by Canatxx -- such as the amount of gas that could be feasibly be stored under the Wyre.

"We also said we'd be quite happy to meet them again and send them more information ," he said.

PWG will now concentrate on preparing for a public inquiry, expected in October, into Canatxx's first controversial applications.

The consortium wants to store up to three billion cubic metres of natural gas.