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)