Email sent to Greg Clark and David Cameron asking them to look at the Shepperdine Question

Dear Mr Cameron and Mr Clark,



Re DRAFT NATIONAL POLICY STATEMENT FOR NUCLEAR POWER GENERATION (EN6)

I am writing to you on behalf of our group of residents living close to the existing nuclear power station at Oldbury in South Gloucestershire to express our grave concerns over your recently issued Policy for Energy. I ask you to consider this email and the attachments very very carefully. Please dont dismiss us as "NIMBYs" in the way we are becoming accustomed to being treated by the Labour government. In their desperate rush to fix the problem they have left this country in by doing nothing about the energy problems of this country for far too long.

Please understand that we are not NIMBYs nor pollitically motivated in expressing our concerns. Neither did any of us start this campaign out as anti-nuclear activists. However, I have to say that this governments recent incompetance in dealing with this matter carefully and properly is gradually turning many of us into active campaigners against their current policy for energy on a level that is now being seen as activist. This community has genuine reasons for expressing our concerns and objections and is deeply worried that no one is listening.

To now read your new energy policy has widened our concerns and I sincerely hope that after reading this you will re-consider one particular aspect of your policy.

I will not comment on any of the rest of your document, as I am certain that many other bodies will, but will focus on the issue that will affect the lives of this community for decades if not centuries. Our concern relates to your specific statement on page 18:

"We support the long overdue National Planning Statements on energy infrastructure, which are of critical importance to nuclear power – and will submit them to a vote of Parliament to protect against Judicial Review and the further delays that would cause."

In our view the National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy is fundamentally flawed in a number of areas and therefore you would be wrong to give it such open support until it has at least been properly reviewed following the recent consultations. We have already set out our reasons for this in the attached document which we submitted to the DECC last month and to the ECCC in the hope that they would also consider it in their own scrutiny of the NPS.

Our objections mainly centre around the suitability of the siting of a new generation style nuclear power station within the village of Shepperdine some 2.5km north of the existing power station at Oldbury.

Although, we have had a nuclear power station at Oldbury for over 40 years now, most people might wonder why we should not have another one. However, the 'devil is in the detail' - the proposed power station will be at least 4 times bigger than the one we have lived with here. Worse still, because this site is on an estuary and its cooling needs will be significantly greater, they will not be able to discharge into the river and will have to erect 3 or 4 massive 200m high cooling towers. There are so many reasons why the proposal is not suitable for this location and yet the DECC seems determined to nominate us in their NPS.

In its current form the draft NPS seeks to pre-determine the outcome of the IPC planning process by limiting matters that it may consider. It also suggests that, for example, the visual impact of these cooling towers can be mitigated by landscaping measures etc. which is quite absurd! No amount of landscaping can mitigate towers of this scale which will be visible from as far away as Tewkesbury and Bridgwater. However, the draft NPS suggests that provided the promoter of the scheme does all he can to mitigate the visual impact then that will be enough for them to obtain planning consent because of the nations greater need for energy.

These structures will be amongst the largest of their kind in the world, twice the height of the cooling towers at Didcot Power Station, twice the height of Big Ben and the largest structure anywhere in the UK outside London. To give you an idea of scale of the visual impact this will have on the beautiful Severn Vale I attach a document with some photo-montages of the cooling towers set against the current power station, which we understand is approx 60m high. I am sure you will see from these that this site is simply not suitable.

The cooling towers are obviously a big concern but there are many other very serious and valid reasons why we feel this site is so unsuitable and I attach a copy of our response to the DECC consultation for your information.

I urge you also to read South Glos. Council's response to the DECC consultation and have also attached this for your perusal. Thornbury Town Council, Rockhampton Parish Council and Oldbury Parish Council have all produced responses expressing similar concerns and I can arrange for you to have copies of these also if you feel they would assist.

I also attach an extract from the Daily Hansard record of part of the House of Lord's debate on the draft nuclear NPS earlier this month in which Lord John Cope highlighted this problem. As I am sure you know, Lord Cope was the conservative MP for South Gloucestershire for many years and therefore knows the area affected extremely well. He is also a strong supporter of nuclear power and yet he realises that our concerns are valid and that the proposals for Oldbury in the draft NPS are simply not suitable.

I therefore urge you to please re-consider your support for the NPS in its current form, many others will, I am sure tell you why it needs substantially reviewing on many grounds, however from this community's view its nomination of Oldbury as a suitable site for this massive scale new generation of power station is totally ridiculous.

If you adopt full support of the NPS documents in their current form, rest assured, we will all pay the price for the many errors this government has made cutting corners in their rush to fix their lack of action in resolving the looming energy crisis.

We would welcome an opportunity to discuss our concerns further with you, particularly if you still consider that Oldbury is suitable for this development and will therefore continue your party's support of the government's NPS documents. If you feel a meeting would be helpful please do let me know.

Yours sincerely

Reg Illingworth

Chairman Shepperdine Against Nuclear Energy