Local people want say on nuclear future

VILLAGERS and councillors living on the Suffolk coast have renewed their calls to be consulted before any decision is made about the building of a new nuclear power station at Sizewell.

VILLAGERS and councillors living on the Suffolk coast have renewed their calls to be consulted before any decision is made about the building of a new nuclear power station at Sizewell.

Since the government announced in November last year that the site, south of Southwold, might be suitable for a new nuclear power station, members of Suffolk Coastal District Council have been calling for local views to be taken into account.

At a meeting of the council's cabinet on Tuesday, councillors discussed the issue and said that there should at least be some form of positive legacy for local communities who will be disrupted while any new facility is constructed as the work could take up to seven years, including improvements to roads, coastal defences, housing and community facilities.

Andrew Nunn, the council's cabinet member for the green environment, said: 'The government announced in November that it thought that Sizewell would be a suitable site for its nuclear expansion programme and launched a consultation exercise. I hope it will now listen to our calls for a real local say, which cannot be brushed aside because of national priorities.

'Any decision on a new Sizewell must take into account local impacts in terms of design and detailed location, and the capacity of the local community and environment to absorb development of this scale.

'There must be the scope for a refusal should these local issues not be successfully resolved, whatever the national need for more electricity.'

If plans are submitted, the council has said that it may have to ask EDF Energy, which runs the existing Sizewell power station, for funding to help cover the costs of processing the applications and consulting locally.