Update from Eon - 27 January 2010

Tim Proudler sent a letter to Barbara Janke , Council Leader, offering to speak to Councillors in Bristol about the Nuclear Power Station at Oldbury.

Well done to Mark Wright for stimulating their interest.

Thanks to all of our supporters who turned up to The Council House---The next venue will be Thornbury on the 6th.

Dear Ms Janke

Development of a potential new nuclear power station at Oldbury on Severn, South Gloucestershire.

We understand that the development of new nuclear power stations will be debated at Bristol City Council’s meeting tomorrow. In advance of this meeting we thought it would be useful for us to provide an update on our project at Oldbury along with an overview of the public engagement activity we have carried out in addition to that by the Department for Energy & Climate Change.

Although our project is in the early stages, we would like to assure you that we are committed to developing an open, honest relationship with the local communities and local councils near to Oldbury. To this end weare keen to meet with Bristol City councillors to discuss the scheme and answer questions on the project and are liaising with the Democratic Services Office to set this up.

In the meantime, I hope you find the information set out below of use.

Horizon Nuclear Power Ltd, the joint venture established by E.ON UK and RWE npower, is developing proposals for a new nuclear power station at Oldbury. The company is working to deliver around 6,000 MW of new nuclear capacity in the UK by 2025 and, in addition to Oldbury, it has also secured land at Wylfa on Anglesey, North Wales.

Providing sufficient electrical output to power a city the size of Greater London, Horizon Nuclear Power’s £15bn investment programme in new nuclear build could create up to 11,000 jobs across both sites, including up to 800 permanent jobs at each site. Our shareholders have interests in 23 nuclear power stations in Germany and Sweden and jointly own three stations in Germany.

Government’s Strategic Siting Assessment and Draft Nuclear National

In March last year we wrote to advise Ms Ormondroyd, Chief Executive of Bristol City Council that landadjacent to the existing power station at Oldbury was to be nominated into a process called Strategic Siting Assessment (SSA). Through this process, the Government aimed to identify strategically suitable locations for new nuclear power stations.

Following receipt of 11 site nominations, the Government published its draft Nuclear National Policy Statement (NPS) in November 2009. Of the 11 sites nominated, 10 sites, including Oldbury, made it through and are listed in the draft Nuclear NPS.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is currently carrying out a series of local and national events consulting on the draft Nuclear NPS. As part of this process it is holding a three day exhibition in Thornbury between Thursday 4th and Saturday 6th February.

The closing date for responses on the draft NPS is 22nd February 2010 and the Government is expected to publish its final NPS later this year.

Whilst our development proposals are still in the early stages, we are keen to engage with local people from the earliest point in the project’s development. Therefore, during 2009 Horizon Nuclear Power initiated a number of informal activities to begin engagement with the local communities close to the site at Oldbury.

We will continue these activities as the project progresses, which to date have included public exhibitions; a drop-in surgery session; newsletters, (copies of which have been sent to Ms Ormondroyd); a are also planning activity across a wider geographical area surrounding the site at Oldbury. This will include, among other areas, the City of Bristol.

In November last year we submitted a request for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) ‘Scoping Opinion’ to the newly formed Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC). The request was accompanied by an EIA Scoping Report, a high level document that sets out the environmental studies and surveys we propose to carry out in order to assess the potential impacts of a new nuclear power station at Oldbury. The report is available to view at www.eon-uk.com/oldbury.

The local exhibitions we held around the Oldbury area last November and December included an overview of the issues covered in the EIA Scoping Report.

The IPC consulted with various statutory bodies on our Scoping Report and provided us with a Scoping Opinion which can be downloaded from their website – infrastructure.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ProgrammeofProjects-5-Jan1.pdf.

Any future planning application for a new nuclear power station at Oldbury would be submitted to the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC).

Before an application can be submitted, the developer must consult widely with statutory and non-statutory groups, as well as local communities, in order to refine theproposal and resolve as many issues as possible.This means that as more information becomes available, our normal engagement activities will be supplemented by more formal processes in which we will be seeking input and feedback on our plans.

Whilst we would always commit to engaging regularly with local communities, this new planning regime for nationally significant projects formalises this requirement.

The first stage in pre-application is to agree with relevant local authorities how the consultation will be carried out. This will be set out in a Statement of Community Consultation (SOCC), which will be developed and agreed with relevant local authorities before it is published.

A SOCC has already been produced for the proposed new station at Hinkley Point in Somerset, which is at a more advanced stage in the development process than our scheme at Oldbury.

We appreciate that the new planning regime is unfamiliar to many, so we’ve developed a document which outlines in very broad terms the different stages in the process and includes a diagram showing where individuals and local communities have the opportunity to have their say on our proposals. This document was circulated to Oldbury Parish Council and South Gloucestershire Council recently and I attach a copy now for your information.

As the diagram’s timeline shows, there are a number of potential milestones scheduled for 2010. As mentioned above, we are liaising with boththe Democratic Services Manager, and Ms Ormondroyd’soffice to further our discussions with Bristol City Council as part of our overall engagement. In closing, I would like to reiterate that our plans are still in the early stages and no formal pre-application public consultation has yet taken place.

We look forward to meeting with you soon. In the meantime if you have any queries please contact our freephone number 0800 130 3125 0800 130 3125 or email us at oldburyenquiries@horizonnuclearpower.com.

Yours sincerely

Tim Proudler

cc: Cllr H Holland, Cllr R Eddy, Cllr M Wright, Ms Ormondroyd