After almost two years in the process, the Notice of Proposed Development for the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston's Orion laser facility is back before the local planning committee to deal with the "reserved matters". This means they will look at all the details which were not resolved in the original outline NOPD - which passed through the committee unopposed in December 2003. [It was withdrawn after a legal challenge, but went before committee and was passed (again) in May 2004, along with some skimpy environmental impact information.]

The closing date for objections to the new laser is 30 September, ten days from now. One small thing you can do now is to write a quick letter of objection. If they get enough there is a chance the decision will be referred (and, if nothing else, that puts a temporary spanner in the nuclear-war profiteers works and reminds them that people do give a shit enough to say something about what they are up to! ... apologies for minor rant...)

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READ DETAILS AND MAKE OBJECTIONS ONLINE
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(or cut n paste if it does not htmlify!)
 http://tinyurl.com/dzn2e

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SEND OBJECTIONS BY POST TO
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Clive Inwards (Case Officer)
Senior Planning Officer
West Berks. Council, Market Street, Newbury RG14 5DL
 cinwards@westberks.gov.uk

Tel: 01635-519111
Fax: 01635-519408
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A model letter can be found at the AWPC site (see link below) which suggests some of the points you could make, but please feel free to adapt it, cut it, amend it - just bear in mind that for objections to be considered they have to be made on planning grounds. You can't just say that nuclear weapons are illegal and immoral, waste of bloody money, militarily useless, etc etc - they will just throw it in the bin.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Area Planning Committee will be meeting at Calcot Centre, High View (off Royal Avenue), Calcot (on the distant outskirts of Reading) on 21 September 2005 - tomorrow - to discuss the NOPD for more modular buildings. We would love to see you there: last time we had snow and body-bags, this time we may have monkeys or ostriches, but we also need people just to come to show the depth of opposition to the next generation of nuclear weapons. In themselves, these four office buildings are quite innocuous, but they will house the staff and contractors working on the new developments.
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BACKGROUND
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As part of the 2002 Site Development Strategy Plan, AWE stated their intention to get a new laser facility (Orion). In May 2004 AWE received outline plan-ning permission for the construction of a new laser facility (Orion). This will be capable of replicating the conditions of a nuclear explosion, and could be used
to test new weapons designs without the need for live testing banned under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) – to which the UK is a signatory.
Preparatory work has begun on the laser site, which you can see from the A340 between Home Office (West) Gate and Construction Gate.

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RELATED NEWS
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A German company MW Zander is reported to have been awarded the contract to design and build the facility for £20million.
(international site  http://www.mw-zander.com/)

This info is based on industry news rather than from the company directly. See  http://www.glenigan.com/news/asp/projectdetailpage.asp?pid=DR0920030912005

According to this info, the start date was 22 August 2005 and duration is likely to be 30 months. Certainly work is happening on the site and some semi-permanaent new security fencing has gone up (around the site, which is already behind chainlink, weldmesh, cameras, tension-lines etc etc .. so maybe they are expecting visitors?!)
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