Wildlife groups hit back at nuclear review claims over Hinkley Point C

By Burnham-On-Sea.com, December 14, 2025, https://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/wildlife-groups-hit-back-at-nuclear-review-claims-over-hinkley-point-c/

Environmental organisations have criticised the government’s Nuclear Review, known as the Fingleton Report, for suggesting that environmental protections are blocking development at Hinkley Point C.

The Severn Estuary Interests Group, a collaboration of organisations working to protect the estuary, says EDF’s reported £700m spend on fish protection measures is not due to regulations but to poor planning and design decisions. The group points out that the government chose to build the power station on one of the UK’s most protected ecological sites.

The Severn Estuary is both a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area, supporting migratory fish, internationally important bird species and diverse invertebrate communities.

Campaigners say the impact of the plant will be immense, with cooling systems drawing in the equivalent of an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 12 seconds and discharging heated water back into the estuary. They argue that data used in the Fingleton Report is inaccurate, relying on figures from the now-decommissioned Hinkley Point B rather than the new design.

EDF’s costs have already risen from £18bn in 2017 to a projected £46bn, with completion now expected in 2031. The company has blamed inflation, Brexit, Covid and engineering challenges for the delays.

Simon Hunter, CEO of Bristol Avon Rivers Trust, said: “When developers fail to consult meaningfully, ignore local expertise, and attempt to sidestep environmental safeguards, costs rise and nature pays the price. Many countries would never have permitted a development of this scale in such a sensitive location in the first place.”

“The situation at HPC is not an indictment of environmental protection, but of poor planning, weak accountability, and a persistent willingness to blame nature for the consequences of human decisions.”

Georgia Dent, CEO of Somerset Wildlife Trust, said: “The government seems to have adopted a simple, reductive narrative that nature regulations are blocking development, and this is simply wrong. To reduce destruction of protected and vulnerable marine habitat to the concept of a ‘fish disco’ is deliberately misleading and part of a propaganda drive from government.”

“Nature in the UK is currently in steep decline and the government has legally binding targets for nature’s recovery, and is failing massively in this at the moment. To reduce the hard-won protections that are allowing small, vulnerable populations of species to cling on for dear life is absolutely the wrong direction to take.”

“A failing natural world is a problem not just for environmental organisations but for our health, our wellbeing, our food, our businesses and our economy. There is no choice to be made; in order for us to have developments and economic growth we must protect and restore our natural world.”

“As we have said all along in relation to HPC, how developers interpret and deliver these environmental regulations is something that can improve, especially if they have genuine, meaningful and – most importantly – early collaboration with local experts.”