Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) notes that this week the planning inspectorate has accepted the application from EdF to build Sizewell C. While TASC accepts the right of the planning inspectorate to do so, it remains mystified as to why such a flawed project can even reach the stage at which it is considered a viable project.
TASC points out that:
- No new nuclear plants are required in the UK to meet its future electricity demand, thus all the planned new build projects including Hinkley, Bradwell and Sizewell are redundant before they are built.
- EdF wish to build the Sizewell plant on an eroding coast at a time when climate change predictions indicate that future flooding of the Sizewell site is inevitable.
- There is still no universally agreed means of disposing of the high-level nuclear waste which will be generated by any future nuclear plant in the UK.
- Sizewell C construction will require the infringement on and destruction of areas of outstanding natural beauty which contribute significantly to the attraction of the area to tourists which support a thriving industry in East Suffolk. This will be jeapordised by Sizewell C.
- Sizewell’s construction will cause 24 hour a day light, noise and dust pollution for more than a decade.
- Prominent business people in the region have urged the project to be dropped and councillors at district and county level are split over the issue.
- EdF is bankrupt and is now resorting to seeking funding through a process by which it will be electricity consumers and taxpayers who assume the cost and the risks associated with the development.
Pete Wilkinson, TASC Chairman, said today, ‘We have to accept the reality that such a ridiculously inappropriate application has made it through the first hurdle, however improbable that is. But we now have to unite with other opposition groups and individuals in the area to produce evidence to show that to such a white elephant development at Sizewell is not only without the interests of the county, its people and environment but that it is also nonsense in a planning sense. To plant a huge, dangerous nuclear station of untried design in the middle of a community, to store its lethal spent fuel on site for at least 140 years and to acknowledge that within that time, the site will flood is some sort of madness. If there is any sense of proportion and reason left in the UK or in this government, it will be laughed out of court.’
