Our letter in response to Paul Geater’s article in the East Anglian Daily Times was published by the EADT on 16 September.

The Writing on the Wall for Sizewell C?

It was heartening to read Paul Geater (14 September) adding his voice to the growing chorus questioning whether we should shackle future generations to the huge – and increasingly uncompetitive – costs of nuclear power. As he says, within a few years, off shore wind will be producing electricity at half the cost.

With June’s damming report from the National Audit Office about how Hinkley Point was a bad deal, and the government’s review into cost-effective energy due next month, perhaps the UK’s commitment to massive new nuclear developments will at last begin to unravel. However in the meantime, EDF will continue to advance its plans for the construction of Sizewell C and to ignore the vociferous representations from local communities about the impact and human cost of its proposals.

Paul Geater rightly describes the blight for Eastbridge and Theberton which will result from the proposed five storey ‘temporary’ accommodation campus ‘built not so much on their doorstep as in their front room’. But EDF plans are even direr – with huge excavations and 40 metre high spoil heaps 100 yards from Eastbridge, not to mention the dust and noise from excavating machinery and dumper trucks.

EDF will very shortly be revealing which of their plans they are prepared to modify in the light of community objections to its Stage 2 proposals earlier this year. At the very least, we would expect EDF to commit to a full review of its accommodation plans in the light of the independent report published in July by Boyer and Cannon, commissioned by Suffolk County Council, which demonstrated that there were several alternative sites – including the option of split sites – with considerably reduced impacts to the Eastbridge site, that offered the legacy potential of much needed and affordable, permanent housing.

Our region and our precious environment deserves no less.

Alison Downes & Paul Collins
Co Chairs,
Theberton & Eastbridge Action Group on Sizewell C (TEAGS)

Is this the end of the nuclear age? Why the writing is on the wall for Sizewell C plans

By Paul Geater, East Anglian Daily Times, 14 September 2017

All my life, nuclear power has been a part of Suffolk life – and for 50 years it has felt as if it would always be there.

As a child in the 1960s I remember Sizewell power station (later Sizewell A) being built just down the road from our home near Leiston.

As a young reporter in the early 1980s I remember the Sizewell B inquiry, and for three years I covered the construction of that plant as our Leiston-based reporter.

But an announcement earlier this week indicated to me that Sizewell C will never be built.

It suggested that nuclear energy, for years seen as the cutting edge of technology, is now out of date – and due to be consigned to the history books.

This week it was confirmed that electricity from offshore wind turbines was now cheaper than it is from nuclear power stations – and that within a few years it will be only half the cost.

And wind and solar power is now becoming much more reliable. Huge new offshore turbines can now add significant power to the grid with only a light breeze.

You might need extra power capacity to come on and go off during weather dips – but nuclear is not the technology to supply that. Nuclear plants have to be on all the time; you can’t switch them on and off in a matter of seconds.

For Suffolk, that has a tremendous impact, and it does need us to reconsider much of what we have considered as the future direction of the county’s development. But in essence it could turn out to be really good news.

What is the point of going ahead with a new Sizewell C nuclear plant? Isn’t it more sensible to start looking at building more wind turbines in the North Sea.

And, whisper it quietly, it makes even more sense to build more onshore wind turbines. Their power is cheaper than the offshore wind farms. It is ludicrous not to develop more of them.

I know many people seem to think these things are the work of Satan himself – but we really do have to get real!

Some vociferous critics might not like their look, feeling that “modern architecture” is out of place in the countryside, but I’m not the only person to think wind turbines can add interest to a landscape and are a fine 21st century architectural contribution to Britain’s built environment.

I don’t look at the end of the nuclear era with any great sense of triumph or satisfaction. I still see nuclear plants as an important green power generation contribution of their time. They are better for the planet than huge coal, gas or oil power stations. I’ve always considered myself to be pro-nuclear.

But they do have safety issues that cost billions to overcome – and make the cost of their electricity uneconomic. There is none of this baggage with wind or solar power.

If I’m right and this renewable news does prove to be the death-knell for Sizewell C plans, there will be relief in the villages around Eastbridge and Theberton that were going to be blighted by a huge campus built not so much on their doorstep as in their front hall!

But it will prompt concern for villages along the A12 who saw EDF cash as the way of ensuring they finally get the Four Villages by-pass.

It is wise that the proposals for the by-pass, published earlier this week, are not dependent on EDF funding. But clearly the financial backing of a huge energy giant would have helped.

Now the county council will have to promote the route to the Government and New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership by stressing the links to Lowestoft and the offshore energy industry.

That has to be the future for Suffolk’s energy coast – and the figures suggest there could be a really bright future for the offshore energy industry that our ports are well-placed to support.

Of course, the Sizewell nuclear power stations will continue to be a feature of the coast for many more decades – Sizewell B will carry on generating until the middle of the century – but it’s difficult to see the nuclear dynasty continuing.

The fact is our technology has moved on – and we need to face that fact.

At a ‘standing room only’ debate on the impacts of Sizewell C at Theberton Church on Sunday evening (4 June), the loudest applause went to Lynda Whitbread, a local resident who threatened to lie down in front of EDF’s trucks if she had to.

The Question Time-style event was convened by three local campaign groups and featured four of the five candidates standing for the Suffolk Coastal constituency in Thursday’s election: Cameron Matthews (Labour), Eamonn O’Nolan (Green), James Sandbach (Liberal Democrats) and Philip Young (Independent). The incumbent MP Therese Coffey sent a statement saying that “out of respect for the victims of (the London) terrorist attack, I do not feel it appropriate to be publicly campaigning”. Bill Turnbull, broadcaster, journalist and local resident chaired the debate.

231 local residents from Yoxford, Middleton, Westleton, Theberton and Eastbridge, and from as far afield as Woodbridge, crammed into the 12th-century church. They asked passionate and occasionally angry questions about the planned Sizewell C nuclear power station, including road safety, workers’ accommodation, the environment and nuclear power in general. EDF’s secrecy in not releasing data on coastal erosion data or property impacts was also highlighted, as was the potential of a new Relief Road.

Independent Philip Young said that he was against Sizewell A, let alone B and C, and that “from a moral and environmental point of view, nuclear is a disaster and very expensive.” Describing himself as ‘colourful’, he said “can’t we create green jobs and tourism jobs rather than have disastrous high impact construction for 10 years?”

James Sandbach (Liberal Democrats) stated that he was not anti-nuclear, but had an open mind. “Looking at the evidence… the burdens and costs far outweigh the benefits, so I am against Sizewell C,” he said, quoting “huge costs” and “the massive impacts concerning the environment, roads and campus”. If it is to be built, a Relief Road was “essential”.

Eamonn O’Nolan (Green) said that Suffolk people are sometimes too subtle. “We need to make our voices heard. Be unreasonable – activate, activate, activate.” He mentioned that anti-fracking protesters are using ‘Lock Ons’ which allow four or five people to chain themselves across a road, and which take several hours to remove.  

Labour’s Cameron Matthews expressed concern about lack of emergency services and called for Sizewell traffic to be “taken off the roads” with new road safety measures. He said that “any accommodation should be able to be converted to social housing. Temporary is a waste of money – we could spread out the accommodation by moving it south towards Ipswich as an example.”

Conservative Therese Coffey’s response to Sizewell C’s recent consultation was read out, in which she urged EDF to “conduct a full appraisal of alternative (accommodation) sites prior to Stage 3 consultation, and “set out in detail… why (road) options explored for Sizewell B, namely the D2 route, haven’t been investigated for Sizewell C.”

The event was convened by B1122 Action Group, Theberton & Eastbridge Action Group and Minsmere Levels Stakeholder Group. A full write-up of the proceedings can be read online at http://bit.ly/SZCDebate

For comment and photos contact:

Charles Macdowell, B1122 Action Group, 07788 755300

Alison Downes, Theberton & Eastbridge Action Group on Sizewell, 07711 843884.