PRESS RELEASE
EDF DCO SUBMISSION IS CONDEMNED BY TOGETHER AGAINST SIZEWELL C AS ‘AT THE WRONG TIME, FOR A DEVELOPMENT IN THE WRONG PLACE AND FOR AN UNNECESSARY POWER PLANT’
TASC today condemned EdF’s development consent order submission (DCO) as it has been submitted at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is still restricting the movement of people which will significantly hamper the public’s ability to scrutinise the plans in the sort of detail required. It also pointed out that the development is planned for a place which could hardly be more inappropriate, being on an eroding coast which has recently been the subject of an expert review by Nick Scarr, a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group and MD of the Seismic and Oceanographic Engineering Consultancy. In his latest report, Nick argues that the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency’s support of the site through the use of mitigative measures and an ‘adaptive approach’ offers ‘a licence to build a nuclear power station where the location and environment fails to offer the criteria necessary for long term safety of the project.’
TASC has today sent a letter to all Suffolk County councillors appealing to them to recognise that the Sizewell C project is a threat to the county rather than a benefit and that by ‘allowing a French and Chinese-funded mega-development…(it) will irreparably alter that unique Suffolk character and nature of this tranquil and welcoming county, transforming it into just another over-developed, car-dominated, road-centred, urbanised area of the UK like so many others – bland, conformist and uniform.’
Pete Wilkinson, TASC’s Chairman, said today,
‘EdF has treated the people of East Suffolk in the most casual and disrespectful way over the years. The consultations were so bad and lacking the sort of information required for people to make a sensible assessment of the impact that EdF was required to add a further consultation. That did nothing to enlighten people, and EdF have now disregarded all the criticism, all the arguments against the development – including incontrovertible evidence that we do not need Sizewell C to keep the lights on – and given two fingers to all the efforts made by people to ask EdF to think again.
‘It is now up to the statutory consultees – including our own Suffolk County Council and East Suffolk Council – to do their duty and defend the county and its environment, its peaceful country villages, its tranquility and way of life which supports a thriving tourist industry, from the ravages of a fate which is being endured by those in the southwest living with the daily nightmare of Hinkley Point C.’
‘We urge people to register as ‘interested parties’ with the Planning Inspectorate and go to speak up for Suffolk and send EdF packing.’
Nick Scarr’s report can be found here
