9 months ago
4141
Stop Hinkley recently posted a lovely festive photograph of local campaigners lined up with their 2017 turkey once more taken out of cold storage.
This annual ritual has something in common with the President of the United States pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey, for in both cases no-one gets the bird.
And, for the eighth-year, activists asked ‘Where is the lecce to cook the turkey?’ as EDF Energy has in 2025 once more failed to deliver on its promise of generating electricity from Hinkley Point C.
In 2007, then EDF Chief Executive Vincent de Rivas had promised that the new nuclear plant would be operating after a decade, but the latest estimate is that these outdoor diners will still be waiting at least a further six years for their Christmas lunch.
EDF Energy appears not to have enough skilled workers, and may even not have enough money, to complete the job.
The original workforce being 8,000 has near doubled to 15,000. The ballooning budget has almost tripled from £18 billion to £46 billion and is still rising.
And yet the construction of the project goes on and on.
To put the timescale in context, in their media release Stop Hinkley helpfully stated that so far ‘it has taken ten Prime Ministers, starting with Mrs Thatcher, to partially build Hinkley Point C’.
Which begs the question how many more will come and go before a single megawatt is produced by this costly colossus?
It is a pity our Stop Hinkley friends did not have a solar powered oven as the sun was shining when the photo was taken.
For more information please contact the NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
