1 November 2017
Dear Signor Rossi,
We congratulate you on becoming EDF’s new Chief Executive and extend a warm invitation to visit Suffolk. As a musician, you may know of Snape Maltings and perhaps your daughters would like to see Ed Sheeran’s “Castle on the Hill”?
We wish to show you the beauties of Minsmere and the Heritage Coast and introduce you to the peaceful parish of Theberton & Eastbridge, the community on the very front line of your company’s plans to build two new reactors at Sizewell. As EDF’s proposals currently stand, 2,400 construction workers are to be housed in temporary accommodation on the boundary of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and 900 lorries will be pounding down a country road through our villages, shaking listed buildings and residents alike.
You are taking up your position at a time when relations between our communities and EDF are at an all time low. We are currently awaiting feedback on EDF’s second stage consultation, but unless radical changes are made, we will be forced to conclude that the consultations are purely symbolic and that EDF has never had any intention of addressing our concerns.
In your new role, you have an opportunity to bring a fresh approach to tackling the cumulative and unacceptable impacts of constructing SIzewell C. We hope that you will help to repair relations with our community by visiting us, so that we may discuss our concerns directly with you, including:
* the social and environmental consequences of housing 2,400 workers in an isolated rural location 300m from Eastbridge. A recent report [1] commissioned by Suffolk County Council concluded that EDF’s preferred site was significantly more environmentally damaging than other options. We urge you to re-examine all options including split-sites.
* the impact of a massive increase in heavy vehicles using the B1122, with consequential dangers of accidents, vibration damage to buildings, increased noise and vehicle emissions, and tackling the congested A1120/A12/B1122 junction. We urge EDF to build a Sizewell Relief Road, as proposed for Sizewell B. [2]
* the cumulative impact on the fragile environment of the Minsmere and Sizewell levels, surrounding AONB and on the predominantly tourist-based economy of this area. This includes the proposals to create deep quarry excavations and 30- metre high spoil, gravel and sand heaps – as tall as Bury St Edmunds Cathedral – destroying the natural environment and its tranquillity, and the potential for accelerated shoreline erosion.
Yours faithfully,
Alison Downes and Paul Collins
Co Chairs, Theberton & Eastbridge Action Group on Sizewell C (TEAGS)
info@stopsizewellc.org, www.stopsizewellc.org
1. Boyer and Cannon report
2. This route was positively re-evaluated in the 2015 AECOM report