5 months ago
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The Welsh capital of Cardiff may lie less than 20 miles as the fish swims from the site of the huge Hinkley Point C nuclear power station now under construction on the coast in Somerset, but French-owned EDF is choosing not to consult with the City Council on its latest plan to vary its Development Consent Order (DCO).
Cardiff is not the only Welsh council excluded from the list of consultees that the operator has agreed with the UK Government should be solicited for their views on the changes, for in fact most of the local authorities in South Wales which border onto the Severn Estuary – Bridgend, Newport, Port Talbot, Swansea, and the Vale of Glamorgan – are excluded.
To the Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities, the exclusion of these Councils as statutory consultees appears illogical for one of the changes that EDF is seeking is the ‘removal of the requirement to install an acoustic fish deterrent (AFD) system’, which many campaigners believe will have a massively detrimental impact on the marine life of the Severn Estuary.
The AFD system was confirmed as a requirement of the original DCO after a long and detailed public enquiry in which local campaign groups fought to ensure that mitigation measures were in place.
Katy Attwater of Stop Hinkley explained: “Evidence was submitted to a Public Enquiry that 11 billion fish will be destroyed during the operational lifetime of Hinkley Point C if AFDs were not fitted to the 4 cooling water intake heads at the entrance to the 2 x 3km tunnels which take in seawater to cool the 2 nuclear reactors.
“It took a long and detailed Public Enquiry in 2020 to get a decision to prevent EDF from removing this condition from the DCO. This decision was also confirmed by the then Secretary of State for Defra, George Eustice in 2022. A lot of organisations have put an enormous amount of energy into getting to this decision to safeguard the AFDs.
“EDF have now decided to again flout the original DCO agreement and these subsequent decisions. This time they say they have found a loophole in our planning process where the Environment Agency is not the Regulator for the AFDs as they sit in open sea, after having worked on this issue with the Environment Agency for the last 10 years.
“The permission to build a nuclear reactor with a cooling system using water from the sea was given on one condition; that the best available technology would be used to protect the marine life of the Severn Estuary and its nine great rivers”.
“It was decided by EDF and the Environment Agency that an AFD was an essential component of the best technology available”.
EDF is seeking changes to the conditions attached to the original DCO ‘via an application for a material change to the Secretary of State’.
EDF claim that they will mitigate the impact of removing the AFD by including ‘a fish recovery and return system and cooling water intake heads designed to reduce the speed at which water enters the cooling water system, therefore reducing the risk to fish in the area’ and taking other measures off-site, but campaign groups, such as Stop Hinkley and the Welsh NFLAs, remain unconvinced.
Given the prospect for ecological disaster, and the impact on recreational and commercial fishing in the estuary, the Welsh NFLAs cannot understand how a list of consultees was drawn up, which includes the Welsh and Scottish Governments and ‘The King’s Most Excellent Majesty In Right Of His Crown’, but excludes the local authorities which lie across the estuary from Hinkley Point C and represent the people of South Wales.
Welsh NFLA Chair Councillor and Cardiff City Councillor Sue Lent said: “What seems most bizarre and perverse is that whilst Welsh Ministers who operate from the Senedd on the Cardiff waterfront are included in the list, and will be consulted, my City Council colleagues and I who work from City Hall in the same city will not.”
The consultation has yet to be published by the Planning Inspectorate. Although the list of consultees agreed between EDF and the UK Government will be automatically consulted for the views, other parties with an interest in the matter will not. Nonetheless they will be able to comment and the Welsh NFLAs will seek to promote that opportunity when the consultation begins.
Cllr Lent added: “If we all respond to the consultation objecting to the removal of the AFD then we still have the chance of keeping it – and winning a reprieve for much of our precious local marine life.”
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For more information contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
