NFLA media release, 21 July 2022
Government gives go-ahead to ‘monumental modern folly’ Sizewell C
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities were saddened and disappointed, but unsurprised, to hear yesterday’s announcement that the interim British Government has decided to grant a Development Consent Order to the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk; for Ministers have been signalling for months that they would give this ‘monumental modern folly’ the go-ahead.
On hearing the news, NFLA Chair, Councillor David Blackburn felt ‘desperately sad’ for the many local people who for years have been campaigning against Sizewell-C, but remains confident that public pressure will prevail:
“Anyone becoming cognisant of the facts surrounding Sizewell-C will soon recognise that it will be disastrous for the local environment, devastating for local communities, and ruinous for the pockets of British taxpayers, so there is a lot to fight for.
“This toxic cocktail has prompted the NFLA to repeatedly make strong objections to government ministers and local planners, and I am absolutely certain that, whilst this decision is a setback, it is not the end of the battle, and local campaigners will soon come off-the-ropes fighting.
“There are still significant permits and planning procedures that developer EDF Energy must get through, and even more critically the finance is not in place and is most uncertain. Chinese strategic involvement has been ruled out, and the French Government has recently indicated that in nationalising EDF it is reviewing its overseas commitments given its challenging operational and financial position at home.
“We cannot even be certain that any future plant can be run safely or efficiently for at Taishan-1 an identical EPR reactor still remains closed after having dangerously malfunctioned in the summer of last year and at Olkiluoto another long-overdue and much-overpriced EPR reactor has yet to come on-line after being found to be riddled with faults”.
Earlier this month, after speaking at a conference in Saxmundham, hosted by local campaign group ‘Together against Sizewell C’, NFLA Steering Committee Chair, Cllr David Blackburn, and Secretary, Richard Outram, were able to visit the Sizewell site, and, once there, local campaigners soon made plain how devastating this enormous undertaking would be to the natural environment and to local communities.
Recounting his first impressions, the Chair of the NFLA Steering Committee, Cllr David Blackburn, said:“It is a huge site right by the beautiful Suffolk shore, spoilt only by the blight represented by the Sizewell-A and B plants. Sizewell-C would represent an enormous engineering undertaking necessitating coastal terraforming and the transport and assembly of many millions of tons of material and intricate equipment by a construction workforce in the thousands over a period of at least a decade.
“All of this would be done at a location on a heritage coastline under increasing threat from ever rising sea levels, at a location adjoining sites of scientific interest and outstanding natural beauty, including the RSPB Minsmere bird reserve, and at a spot to which materials and staff will be transported by myriad daily journeys by HGV and passenger coach, choking up the adjoining rural villages and meandering country lanes.
“Shockingly, however, perpetual gridlock may not be the greatest hardship faced by locals, for Sizewell-C has the potential to threaten one of their most basic human needs, access to drinking water, an issue that was of such a magnitude that even the Planning Inspectorate chose to recommend refusal of this madness to Ministers citing the uncertainty of water supply.
“Sizewell’s ugly older sister, Hinkley Point-C, has also been accompanied by ever upward pressure on house prices, new hotel developments, and pressures on local schools, health centres, retail outlets and leisure facilities, raising the question will the local area be able to cope?”
The NFLA are also direct in challenging the false claims made by Ministers that Sizewell-C will cost only £20 billion to build and bring on-line:
“The government claims that Sizewell C will cost £20 billion to build, but the Nuclear Free Local Authorities believe this is a felonious fantasy.
“A near identical plant now being built at Hinkley Point C in Somerset is now ten years late and will cost EDF Energy, according to the company’s own estimates, at least £26 billion, way over the original budget, and recent research by the University of Greenwich Business School has predicted that Sizewell C could cost up to a whopping £44 billion and take up to 17 years to build!”
The NFLA knows that any new nuclear plant, with its uncertainties, struggles to attract private finance and requires a massive government subsidy as a ‘sweetener’ for investors, but with Sizewell-C, this government has a cunning plan up its sleeve – to make taxpayers pick up the bill through its new Regulated Asset Base model.
Cllr Blackburn added: “New nuclear projects have a history of being delivered way over budget and way over time, but, in this instance, it will not be EDF Energy that takes the hit, as with this government’s new RAB financial model British taxpayers will be robbed to pay for Sizewell C through the application of a special levy on every British customer’s bill. So, for already hard-pressed taxpayers, when you get nuclear, you pay more.”
For more information, please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email on richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk or mobile 07583097793 This media release can also be found on the NFLA website at: https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/government-gives-go-ahead-to-monumental-modern-folly-sizewell-c/
