Sizewell C Nuclear : too destructive, too costly, too late

The Article, by IAN LINDEN, 14 Apr 24

Joan Girling grew up near the Suffolk coast, with its little terns, barn owls, harebells, ladies bedstraw, sedums, blue butterflies and acid grassland. There was no nuclear power station. “It was perfect, a nature lover’s paradise,” she told me.

In 1959, Joan’s father, faced with compulsory purchase, was forced to sell off a corner of their front garden, with its large pond full of water lilies and wildlife. It was to make way for workers’ traffic to the site of Sizewell A, a nuclear power station. Sizewell A is today a great, ugly, Stalinist-looking excrescence looming above the seashore. Her grandmother, who lived next door, watched as they filled in the pond. “The worst part was to hear my Grandma crying. I remember it as if it was yesterday.”

In the late 1980s it all happened again: Sizewell B. This time Joan moved house with her family to escape construction traffic. From 1993-2005 she served on Suffolk County Council. Fifteen years ago, Joan Girling became a founding and deeply dedicated member of Community against Nuclear Expansion, later renamed Together Against Sizewell C (TASC).

The human and environmental costs ought not be underestimated. The disruption and destruction accompanying years of building accounts for the level and persistence of local protest. Stop Sizewell C, originally a parish of Theberton and Eastbridge action group, alongside the local Friends of the Earth, joined TASC in a long-running legal campaign. Crowdfunding helped finance three rounds of court action seeking judicial review of the Sizewell C project. The last one challenged the Business Secretary (then Kwasi Kwarteng) over his 2022 Development Consent Order giving the green light to start construction. Kwateng rejected the Planning Inspectorate’s conclusion (part of the process required by the 2008 Planning Act) that in the absence of an assessed, permanent, potable water supply for the project, “the case for the grant of development consent is not yet made”. Sizewell C will be forced to use a desalination plant during construction. The Court of Appeal found for the Government in December 2023.

The construction of Sizewell C means heavy truck traffic. New roads, a large park and ride facility, as well as a railway branch line, will have a major impact over a large area. Much of it is designated by Natural England — sponsored, incidentally, by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) — as a Suffolk Coast and Heaths National Landscape (formerly Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). A small bite comes out of reed beds and marsh land, designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The new reactors will lie right next to Minsmere, a popular RSPB reserve where the drain-pipe boom of the bittern can be heard. Building Sizewell C will blight tourism for two decades, though it will boost other aspects of the local economy. But before dismissing protest as Nimbyism, it is as well to evaluate what lies in the backyard………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.thearticle.com/sizewell-c-too-destructive-too-costly-too-late