By Harry Mottram: All I wanted was to get a photograph of Hinkley Point C from the public footpath along the coast from Stolford in West Somerset. But within yards of the perimeter fence to the nuclear power station I was stopped by two armed policemen who pointed their machine guns at me suspecting a terrorist come to blow up the place. Actually, I was a reporter for the Bridgwater Mercury newspaper and after a quick explanation the atmosphere lightened. They explained they were employed by the power station authorities to continually circle the perimeter of the power station to check on parked cars, wayward walkers and potential protestors. It turned out after an enquiry which was later denied there were more policemen patrolling the power station than there were in the nearest large town on Bridgwater with its population of over 40,000.
This was back in 2016 but not a huge amount has changed. The nuclear power station hasn’t been completed, the French and Chinese Governments who fund its construction still continue to plough in billions of pounds, the concrete continues to be poured into the site with a completion date reported to be now past 2030. The BBC TV have been airing a documentary series called Building Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Power Station which is part public relations and part industrial insight into behind the scenes of the work going. The Stop Hinkley protestors get a brief look in but in general it’s got the feel of a PR exercise to justify the huge project. At an eventual cost of around £35bn the power station was supposed to have been completed in 2017 with enough power to light up 6 million homes – more than the entire population of the West Country.
As a local newspaper reporter, I was treated with distain by Hinkley’s public relations team at best and open hostility at worst for the reason of asking unwelcome questions. Why didn’t anyone believe the power station’s publicity about when it would be finished? Why was the eventual electricity going to be more expensive than any other form of power generated by wind, sun, water, coal or gas and why were the Chinese and French Governments deciding on the infrastructure of west Somerset. On a visit to their so-called college and training centre questions were avoided and all I got was a lot of twaddle from French executives who seemed to think they were doing the county a favour by building the power station. The blame for all of this rests with the UK Government of Theresa May who gave it the green light at a cost then on £18bn. Handing the decision making to the funders in Paris and Beijing was in my view a big mistake – let alone the arguments over whether alternatives would have been far cheaper and easier to set up such as wind farms and even the Severn Estuary tidal power station.
The one bonus of Hinkley Point C is that of a massive job creation programme. Even if it never comes online the power station employs thousands of workers and even more contract workers across the county. It’s led to new schools, upgrades to roads, new hotels and restaurants and a thousand and one businesses who supply the workers, the transport, the concrete and steel and all the other requirements for the multi-billion-pound project. Bridgwater has been transformed by the building of Britain’s first nuclear power station in a generation with huge new housing estates built, massive accommodation blocks for workers and an injection into the local economy that is very welcome.
I met up with the Stop Hinkley protest group back then expecting to hear concerns about the costs and the foreign backers. But no – their main concern was the folly of nuclear power stations. Mention Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima and you get the picture. When nuclear power stations go wrong, they go wrong big time. And in this country, there have been radioactive leaks it Windscale while Germany and the USA have had numerous incidents and accidents where safety has been compromised. The protestors main concern was about the decades it takes to decommission a nuclear power station and that it takes thousands of years for a plant to be totally safe meaning future generations must pick up the bill for essentially a useless mound of concrete.
Maybe Hinkley Point C will come online as promised and never cause any danger to health locally or to its workers but there are serious questions about the project. And those questions won’t go away anytime soon since it is still years away from completion. In the meantime, the power station continues to be guarded by armed police officers who stop innocent looking dog walkers, hikers and local journalists from getting too close to the perimeter fence. And the BBC screen the Building Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Power Station which may or may dispel those worries – especially when protestors (and journalists) mention those unwelcome names of Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Rapscallion Magazine is an online publication and is edited by Harry Mottram and is published for his own interest.
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