See the Light Protest in Thornbury
Over 150 local residents gathered last night ( 4 March 2010) in the high street outside Thornbury Town Hall to protest against plans to build a new power station on the edge of the River Severn in the nearby village of Shepperdine near Oldbury-on-Severn, South Gloucestershire.
The protesters, carrying lanterns, torches and glow sticks marched down Thornbury High Street towards yet another public consultation meeting run by the E.ON and RWE consortium, Horizon Nuclear Power, who will be building the power station. They chanted "DECC see the light" (in a call to the government Department of Energy and Climate Change to remove Oldbury from the list of proposed sites) and "E.ON out" in a call to the electricity giant to withdraw.
Messages and images were projected on to the Town Hall, including "NO MONSTROUS COOLING TOWERS" and "NO HIGHLY TOXIC WASTE DUMP" to explain some of the reasons why the protesters are so angry. Footage of a video portraying the scale of the 200m high cooling towers was projected on to the Armstrong Hall where the meeting run by E.ON and RWE was held. The video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=dipripod#p/u/2/j5vb5ZEjMu8 and shows how big the proposed cooling towers will look on this greenfield site.
Many of the protesters then attended the public meeting, during which Horizon outlined its plans to about 130 members of the public. The meeting became heated as members of the audience claimed that nothing they had said so far had been listened to.
Local anger has grown in recent months as residents learn the scale of the proposed power station. The new power station would be 8 times bigger than the existing nuclear plant at Oldbury, with 3 or 4 cooling towers which could be 200m high. Even local supporters of nuclear power are saying the proposed station is too big for the Shepperdine site. There could also be a waste store for highly radioactive toxic spent fuel.
The protestors claimed many local residents were unable to attend the meeting as the venue selected was too small. Reg Illingworth of SANE (Shepperdine Against Nuclear Energy) said, "SANE was disappointed at the choice of such a small venue. A lot of other people wanted to come but felt intimidated with the need to apply for tickets and are concerned with what E.ON may do with our personal information. I urge E.ON to choose a larger venue for their next meeting so that more people can get involved in the consultation. Our movement and community continues to grow quickly. We came away from the meeting with more questions than answers."
Local people feel the proposal is not suitable at Oldbury for many reasons. Reg Illingworth of SANE says, "We now know that what DECC and Horizon are proposing is wrong on so many grounds but fear that no one will listen to us in their rush to go nuclear. They need to rectify the damage done by doing nothing about filling the energy gap for far too long. It is reassuring to have the support of South Gloucestershire Council and numerous politicians but will the DECC listen?
“The site is so obviously unsuitable, it is in the highest level flood zone risk, where it is ridiculous to consider such a scheme, made even more ridiculous when you bear in mind they are planning to store highly toxic waste on the site for up to 150 years! The monstrous cooling towers could be amongst the tallest in the world and it is unbelievable that they want to build these in the Severn Vale, adjacent to two very significant areas of outstanding natural beauty. All other river locations were ruled out by DECC because they would need these towers and we can not understand why the River Severn has not been."
At the DECC public meeting last month, as well as the massive scale of this proposal, residents had been shocked to learn that the government has still not resolved the question of long term storage of the highly toxic waste produced by the plant. They were told that the waste would have to be stored on site until they found somewhere to store it long term and so the plans would have to include a waste storage facility at the site for up to 160 years.