Stop Hinkley

Campaign against nuclear power in the South West

Severn Estuary Interests Group responds to Nuclear Review (Fingleton Report) challenging misleading environmental narrative

Stop Hinkley has been campaigning in support of the necessity to protect the fish and wildlife of the Severn Estuary, so it was very good to read the comments in the recent Somerset Wildlife Trust (SWT) report criticizing the latest Nuclear Review,  (Fingleton Report).  Environmental groups have been asking government for collaboration with local experts, so perhaps now they will be heard and will be in time to save the fish in the Severn Estuary.

SWT questioned the decision to build a nuclear power station on the Severn Estuary as it is both a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area – a globally significant habitat supporting vast populations of migratory fish, internationally important bird species, and diverse invertebrate communities.  They go on to say:

“HPC will extract the equivalent of one Olympic-sized swimming pool every 12 seconds, force it through the reactor system at high velocity, and then discharge it back into the estuary significantly heated. The idea that these impacts are trivial is pure misinformation”.

“The data cited in the Nuclear (Fingleton) Report is inaccurate. It is data collected in relation to Hinkley Point B, an older and now decommissioned nuclear power station, and extrapolated for HPC. The designs of these power stations are not the same”.

“The data ignore fish behaviour in the estuary resulting in assumptions that much lower numbers will be impacted than the reality. The importance of the estuary for fish spawning is largely ignored and juveniles that can’t be counted but will be sucked through the cooling system”.

“It is also important to place current claims about cost increases in a proper context. Hinkley Point C was originally expected to be operational in 2017 at a cost of £18 billion. It is now projected for 2031 at a cost of £46 billion. EDF itself has attributed these enormous delays and overruns to inflation, Brexit, Covid, civil-engineering challenges, and an extended electromechanical phase. Given the scale of these industry-driven issues, it is frankly unworthy to mock those seeking to uphold the legal requirement for EDF to install an acoustic fish deterrent on the enormous cooling-water intakes”.

Simon Hunter, CEO of Bristol Avon Rivers Trust said: “When developers fail to consult meaningfully, ignore local expertise, and attempt to sidestep environmental safeguards, costs rise and nature pays the price. Many countries would never have permitted a development of this scale in such a sensitive location in the first place. The situation at HPC is not an indictment of environmental protection, but of poor planning, weak accountability, and a persistent willingness to blame nature for the consequences of human decisions.”

Georgia Dent, CEO of Somerset Wildlife Trust said: “The government seems to have adopted a simple, reductive narrative that nature regulations are blocking development, and this is simply wrong. To reduce destruction of protected and vulnerable marine habitat to the concept of a ‘fish disco’ is deliberately misleading and part of a propaganda drive from government. Nature in the UK is currently in steep decline and the government has legally binding targets for nature’s recovery, and is failing massively in this at the moment. To reduce the hard-won protections that are allowing small, vulnerable populations of species to cling on for dear life is absolutely the wrong direction to take. A failing natural world is a problem not just for environmental organisations but for our health, our wellbeing, our food, our businesses and our economy. There is no choice to be made; in order for us to have developments and economic growth we must protect and restore our natural world. As we have said all along in relation to HPC, how developers interpret and deliver these environmental regulations is something that can improve, especially if they have genuine, meaningful and – most importantly – early collaboration with local experts.”

As passionate experts state the obvious need to protect life in the Severn Estuary we must keep pressing the case for our government to review their decisions.  EDF must put the ‘best available technology’, Acoustic Fish Deterrents, on their water intakes at HPC.

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