Last night Somerset local authority Sedgemoor District Council met to discuss the Hinkley Point C planning cash shortfall as Sedgemoor councillors finally see the light about EDF's intentions towards local communities. Whilst the councillors drew attention to the problems EDF's proposed development is going to create, which include increased homelessness; lack of investment for regeneration in the town; added strain on local services and a long-lasting negative impact on tourism; local resident Shana Deal said “I can't believe that the penny is only just dropping for the local council regarding the consequences of rolling over for mega corporations. Sedgemoor have been too cosy with EDF thinking that this project will be a gravy train when the reality that this is a community being pimped out by central government to dirty dealing EDF. The District Council have been a walkover to EDF for too long, the idea that creating a toxic legacy which poses huge dangers for the host community and wider society from the day it is switched on can be mitigated is completely absurd.”

The Sedgemoor District Council meeting came ahead of today's preliminary meeting of the Infrastructure Planning Commission which is to set out which issues are to going be examined relating to EDF's application for two mega-nuclear reactors and the 60 year accumulation of high level spent fuel waste that EDF want to dump here. After last weeks hugely successful protest at Hinkley Point which saw over a thousand protestors and nearly two hundred blockaders SWAN campaigner, and local mum, Nikki Clark said “People are beginning to wake up to the enormity of what is being forced on them by central government and to the fact that the government has thrown Democracy out of the window with their corrupt national policy statements[1] and planning act 2008[2]. Fukushima has shown what a stupid idea keeping radioactive waste at the coast is, let alone how negligent it is to build new nuclear when there are far better alternatives. Unlike the current fleet of nuclear reactors whose waste is currently moved to Sellafield in Cumbria, the proposed reactors would make even dirtier and hotter wastes that cannot be moved for at least 160 years turning Hinkley into the Sellafield of the Southwest, Despite this the IPC are already attempting to rule out discussions of nuclear safety, security, protection of people and transport of nuclear material.”

Local campaigner Ornella Sabeine says “The recent corruption of governance report[1] (see www.ace.org) showed how government data has been misused by DECC to create fear among politicians about energy blackouts and carbon targets causing worried MP's not only to vote in favour of nuclear power, but also to deny the public a voice on the gravest issues human societies have ever been faced with. Who are these DECC officals? What level of collusion is there between these civil servants and the energy company operatives who are working within DECC as was revealed by the Guardian last year? [3] From policy through to planning this whole thing is completely corrupt, we demand that this sham process is suspended and that the national policy statements are made the subject of a parliamentary inquiry. The government should embark on an immediate amd decisive programme of energy conservation and a roll out of renewables across the country which will create clean green sustainable jobs, and put us on track for significant reduction in carbon emissions.”

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Notes to editors
[1] A briefing of ministers on the Corruption of governance report was held in parliament at the end of January, copies of the report are available here  http://www.ukace.org/publications/ACE%20Campaigns%20%282012-01%29%20-%20Corruption%20of%20Governance%20-%20Jan%202012
[2] An outline of the meaning of changes to the planning act can be found here
 http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/planningact2008.pdf

[3] A freedom of information request made by the Green MP Carloine Lucas revealed in the Guardian last year that energy company workers are embedded inside the D.E.C.C. Department, giving them unreasonable access to influence over civil servants and possibly government ministers  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/05/energy-companies-lend-staff-government