nuclear-news

Best foot forward: Campaigners are marching again for a Nuclear Free Wales

Nuclear Policy info 19 July 23

Campaigners from anti-nuclear campaign groups in Wales and beyond will be pulling on their walking boots to march the 44 miles (72 kms) from Trawsfynydd to the Eisteddfod at Boduan next month in support of a nuclear free Wales.

The march is being organised by CND Cymru (the Welsh Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), CADNO (the Society for the Prevention of Everlasting Nuclear Destruction) and PAWB (People against Wylfa B). The marchers will also receive the full support of the Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities which are equally opposed to the plans being hatched in Westminster and Cardiff to redevelop new nuclear plants at inland Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd and at the coastal Wylfa site in Ynys Mon (Anglesey).

Since former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in April of last year his ill-judged intention to develop 24 gigawatts of nuclear power generating capacity in the UK by 2050, at Trawsfynydd, the Welsh Government has established a new company, Cwmni Egino, to attract inward investment in nuclear, whilst at Wylfa, following the abandonment of a nuclear power plant plan led by the Horizon consortium in 2021, a British government minister and the local Member of Parliament have both been courting US nuclear operators Bechtel and Westinghouse to bring their large reactors to the island.

There has also been persistent agitation within the nuclear industry, the media, and most recently from Parliament’s Welsh Affairs Committee to bring so-called Small Modular Reactors to the two sites, however none of the SMR designs have so far received the necessary licencing approvals to be deployed in the UK or none have even been built.

Since former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in April of last year his ill-judged intention to develop 24 gigawatts of nuclear power generating capacity in the UK by 2050, at Trawsfynydd, the Welsh Government has established a new company, Cwmni Egino, to attract inward investment in nuclear, whilst at Wylfa, following the abandonment of a nuclear power plant plan led by the Horizon consortium in 2021, a British government minister and the local Member of Parliament have both been courting US nuclear operators Bechtel and Westinghouse to bring their large reactors to the island.

There has also been persistent agitation within the nuclear industry, the media, and most recently from Parliament’s Welsh Affairs Committee to bring so-called Small Modular Reactors to the two sites, however none of the SMR designs have so far received the necessary licencing approvals to be deployed in the UK or none have even been built.

Since April of last year, Welsh anti-nuclear campaigners have also been especially active with an exhibition highlighting 40 years of nuclear free Wales touring the nation, with rallies held and declarations made at events in Caernarfon and Cardiff, and with actions opposing the dumping of radioactive water at Fukushima in Japan. A key part of the 2022 campaign was a first successful march, organised in the summer of last year from Trawsfynydd to Wylfa.

This time again the intrepid marchers will set off from Trawsfynydd on 2 August, but this year they are Eisteddfod bound!

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. For more details, and to book your place on the march, please contact Organiser Sam Bannon by email to sampbannon@gmail.com or telephone 07482536264.  https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/best-foot-forward-campaigners-are-marching-again-for-a-nuclear-free-wales/

July 20, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, UK