Category: South West England

“This film gives an account of the first few days of the occu­pa­tion of Lang­bor­ough Farm on the site of one of the pro­posed ‘new wave’ of Nuclear Reac­tors, at Hink­ley point in Som­er­set. The activists took occu­pan­cy in the ear­ly hours of Sun­day the 12th of Feb­ru­ary and are set­tling in to their new home and com­mu­ni­ty.”

Check out this great vid of the open­ing days of the occu­pa­tion

Thurs­day, 16 Feb­ru­ary 2012, South West Against Nuclear:

Activists who have occu­pied a farm to oppose ground clear­ance for a new nuclear site in West Som­er­set today entered the fifth day of their stand-off with the French ener­gy com­pa­ny EDF.

The pro­test­ers entered Lang­bor­ough Farm at Hink­ley Point on Sat­ur­day night and estab­lished a camp around derelict build­ings which are believed to house hiber­nat­ing bats. They want the “Pre­lim­i­nary Works”, which will clear and lev­el sev­er­al hun­dred acres of Som­er­set coastal land to be halt­ed for 12 months until EDF know if they actu­al­ly have per­mis­sion to build their pro­posed reac­tors.

“Cur­rent­ly EDF have no per­mis­sion to build here, but aston­ish­ing­ly they DO have per­mis­sion to destroy this pre­cious part of our com­mon nat­ur­al her­itage” said farm occu­pant Theo Simon. “If this land and these habi­tats are lost and then they don’t get plan­ning per­mis­sion, EDF will have com­mit­ted an act of unprece­dent­ed eco­log­i­cal van­dal­ism. If on the oth­er hand, as many locals now sus­pect, the plan­ning per­mis­sion is already a “done deal” then that means the cur­rent IPC pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion is an expen­sive sham.”

Mr Simon (53) said that their camp has now been strength­ened with food and water and oth­er sup­plies brought in by local well-wish­ers. Yes­ter­day campers were vis­it­ed by West Som­er­set Dis­trict Coun­cil­lor Jon Free­man, who told them how he thought the plan­ning process had been cor­rupt­ed by pres­sure from cen­tral gov­ern­ment and the edf. today they were advised by a retired Hink­ley B engi­neer who explained his tech­ni­cal reser­va­tions about flaws in the EDF’s reac­tor and waste stor­age plans.

Anoth­er occu­pi­er, Nik­ki Clark, said, “Already our sup­port is grow­ing here, peo­ple who had begun to give up hope, have been empow­ered by our occu­pa­tion, and they are free to walk up the foot­paths to vis­it us. There is a lot of resent­ment in this are at the way this project has been steam-rollered through, but we’re here to draw a line on the ground. The wan­ton destruc­tion of this beau­ti­ful land must be halt­ed until there has been a gen­uine demo­c­ra­t­ic process the begin­ning of which must be Par­lia­ment deem­ing the Nation­al State­ments as fraud­u­lent in the light if the cor­rup­tion of gov­er­nance report.”

The new res­i­dents are all look­ing for­ward to the stop new nuclear sur­round & block­ade of Hink­ley Point on March 10th & 11th to mark the first anniver­sary of the begin­ning of the Fukushi­ma cat­a­stro­phe. Around 400 peo­ple descend­ed on the sta­tion last Octo­ber to dis­rupt EDFs oper­a­tions & voice their dis­sent at the so-called Nuclear Renais­sance.

ENDS

Site Con­tact: 07933920425

OR: 07530947554

Notes:

Details of the Stop New Nuclear sur­round & block­ade avail­able here:  http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

South West Against Nuclear:
http://southwestagainstnuclear.wordpress.com

Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work:
http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net

Boy­cott EDF Ener­gy:
 http://boycottedf.org.uk

Twit­ter: @StopNukePower @NoNewNuclear @StopNewNuclear @BoycottEDF #Occu­py­Hink­ley

‘Join the Hink­ley Barn­stomers’ fly­er avail­able for down­load here:  https://we.riseup.net/assets/83705/barnstormer.pdf

13th Feb­ru­ary 2012

http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net/content/nuclear-reactor-site-occupied

Directions/practical info:

In the ear­ly hours of Sun­day morn­ing a group of us moved into and occu­pied the premis­es of Lang­bor­ough Farm near Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion. The old farm­house premis­es, on a site that EDF has ear­marked for it’s pro­posed new nuclear reac­tor, is now a legal squat. To help them set­tle into their new home with­out any has­sle the occu­piers would wel­come friend­ly vis­i­tors today and in the days ahead.

To find your way by Pub­lic Foot­path to Lang­bor­ough Farm, see map below, or go to half-way through the youtube film “West Coun­try Walks” at
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWp_ut-Uya4

Friends of mine went to vis­it the new­ly squat­ted site next to Hink­ley Point pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set this week­end. Lang­bor­ough Farm (ST 201 456) is in the mid­dle of the area on which EDF ener­gy pro­pose to build a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion. They said that although work to clear the site is like­ly to begin in the com­ing weeks, it is crossed by pub­lic foot­paths and bridal ways that are still open. They said that although they saw lots of G4S secu­ri­ty, get­ting access to the site was easy. The secu­ri­ty were very inter­est­ed in them and took lots of pho­tos but did­n’t stop them so long as they stuck to the foot­paths.

They parked in the lay-by on the main approach road to the pow­er sta­tion (Point 1 on the map) and then walked along the pub­lic foot­path which starts at a stile imme­di­ate­ly to the left of the main gates to the pow­er sta­tion (Point 2). The foot­path fol­lows the south­ern perime­ter fence of Hink­ley B pow­er sta­tion and then fol­lows a hedge line west to Lang­bor­ough Farm. They said it took about 15 — 20 min­utes to get there. Access is very mud­dy and there are a cou­ple of gates and stiles.

Remem­ber that access to the farm is by Pub­lic Right Of Way, and if any­one tries to obstruct you they will be com­mit­ting an offence under sec­tion 137 of the High­ways Act 1980, pun­ish­able by a fine of up to £1000.There are many paths across the site, but your best bet may be Wick Drove Lane, where there is a lay-by for park­ing. Walk down to the Pow­er Sta­tion entrance then turn left up the pub­lic foot­path.

One of the occu­piers said “We real­ly want you to come and vis­it and  spread the word. We are fight­ing against a cor­rupt plan­ning deci­sion, made at the high­est lev­els, which favours the nuclear cor­po­ra­tions over the demo­c­ra­t­ic process, and we will feel much safer here if we have vis­i­ble sup­port.”

(It’s cold out there so please take warm food, water, any spare tents, blan­kets or bed­ding you may have and any­thing use­ful you can think of when you go!)

If you’ve got time come and stay!

8th Feb -

Pro­test­ers occu­py­ing trees at Hink­ley Point in Som­er­set were evict­ed today by police and a 5‑man climb­ing team hired by the French com­pa­ny EDF.   The mature oak wood­land is due to be cleared this month so that pre­lim­i­nary work can begin on build­ing 2 new nuclear reac­tors and a radioac­tive waste dump at the site.

The evic­tion came around 11am, after the occu­piers had spent a sleep­less night in sub-zero tem­per­a­tures. One of the occu­piers, Michael, said “Secu­ri­ty guards and dog-han­dlers  kept us awake all night with taunts and intim­i­da­tion from bark­ing dogs.” 

 How­ev­er, the occu­piers had been rein­forced by sup­plies  deliv­ered overnight by well-wish­ers from the local area. Can­ning­ton res­i­dent, Roy Pum­frey, vis­it­ed the site three times over the last cou­ple of days, try­ing to deliv­er sup­plies to the pro­test­ers. On his final vis­it to the site this morn­ing, Mr. Pum­frey said ” I have con­cerns about Group 4 Security’s inter­pre­ta­tion of the law and ordi­nary people’s civ­il right’s. Their guard’s told me that I was tres­pass­ing when I was in fact using pub­lic rights of way . “

In the morn­ing a climb­ing  team, with 5 police offi­cers in atten­dance, climbed into the trees and began remov­ing belongs and climb­ing gear, before telling the remain­ing occu­pi­er, Taunton man, David Jesse  that he was tres­pass­ing and would be forcibly removed if he did not come down.  After leav­ing the tree peace­ful­ly, Jesse was searched and then released by police, who warned him that he could have been charged with Aggra­vat­ed Tres­pass, as his pres­ence in the trees was pre­vent­ing the chain­saw crew from going about their law­ful work.

Speak­ing for the South West Against Nuclear net­work, Theo Simon of Shep­ton Mal­let said,  “It appears that EDF have act­ed ruth­less­ly and prob­a­bly ille­gal­ly,   to end a legit­i­mate peace­ful protest.  Clear­ly, if  the cur­rent work is only to clear dead elms as EDF claim, then the pro­test­ers in the oak trees were not in any way pre­vent­ing this work.  In the light of this company’s record how­ev­er, we do not expect them to play clean.  This is a com­pa­ny who last Novem­ber had 2 employ­ees jailed and were fined 500,000 euros (£428,000) in France for spy­ing on anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers.  Aston­ish­ing­ly,  this is a com­pa­ny who have also been giv­en the green light to destroy a beau­ti­ful part of our Som­er­set her­itage, before they have even won plan­ning per­mis­sion for their pro­posed Nuclear project”.

http://southwestagainstnuclear.wordpress.com/

Update 8th Feb: Overnight on Feb­ru­ary 6th, anti nuclear activists occu­pied trees on EDF’s pro­posed new nuclear site west of Hink­ley Point in Som­er­set.  This was in response to intial ground-clear­ance work being car­ried out by con­trac­tors the day before.

Although EDF have sub­se­quent­ly said that the work being done was only the clear­ing of dead elms, this is undoubt­ed­ly the first stage in prepar­ing for major clear­ance, since EDF have now been giv­en the go-ahead to begin reduc­ing this beau­ti­ful piece of Som­er­set coast­line to a lunar land­scape.  They  are being per­mit­ted to do this even though it will be 12 months before they will know if they have plan­ning per­mis­sion for the 2 new nuclear reac­tors and a radioac­tive waste dump.  They obvi­ous­ly think this is a done deal!

In response to media inter­est today, includ­ing BBC TV Points West, Som­er­set Sound and Radio 4, and the West­ern Dai­ly Press, EDF have also claimed that this stand of oak is not sched­uled to be felled as part of the so-called “Pre­lim­i­nary Works”.  How­ev­er, WSDC Plan­ning Offi­cer Andrew Good­child has con­firmed that this is untrue, and ALL veg­e­ta­tion with­in the site will have to be cleared in the next 4 to 6 weeks under the apt­ly named “Phase Zero”.   The nest­ing sea­son won’t be a big prob­lem though, as they have a spe­cial license from “Nat­ur­al Eng­land” to destroy the feath­ered song­sters homes.  It seems they have a spe­cial license for just about any­thing!

Mon­ey talks, but actions talk loud­er.  The gal­lant folk who took com­mand of the sit­u­a­tion have act­ed pre-emp­tive­ly and spon­ta­neous­ly and are cur­rent­ly few in num­ber.  They are in a net off the ground and “just about” warm enough.  They need ground sup­port – peo­ple to just vis­it them with treats, flasks, and warm words – which will also help defend them by keep­ing every­thing in the pub­lic eye.  A video cam­era would be extreme­ly help­ful, and maybe more phones.  RIGHT NOW THEY NEED A DELIVERY OF WARM SOCKS.

~~~~~~

7/2/12

Pro­tes­tors take to the trees at Hink­ley Point in a bid to save ancient oaks from being trashed by EDF before gov­ern­ment deci­sion on new nuclear is re-exam­ined.

Ear­ly this morn­ing, con­cerned locals occu­pied threat­ened, ancient trees at the pro­posed site for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion at Hink­ley Point, near Bridg­wa­ter in Som­er­set.

Michael Hunt, one of the tree occu­piers said of their action :
“ We’re here to stop work on this crim­i­nal devel­op­ment and to pro­tect the ancient trees that are sur­round­ed by a spe­cial con­ser­va­tion area but mys­te­ri­ous­ly exclud­ed from it “

The protest was pre­cip­i­tat­ed by last week’s shock­ing rev­e­la­tion in a report by Unlock Democ­ra­cy and the Asso­ci­a­tion for Con­ser­va­tion of Ener­gy enti­tled “ A Cor­rup­tion of Gov­er­nance?”

The report reveals in detail how MPs and Par­lia­ment based their nation­al ener­gy pol­i­cy, specif­i­cal­ly their pol­i­cy to build new nuclear pow­er on fal­si­fied infor­ma­tion.

The report out­lines that, on the basis of the Government’s own evi­dence, we do not need new nuclear to ‘keep the lights on’ or reduce CO2 emis­sions. It goes on to show that, on the basis of the Government’s own evi­dence, it is not the best way to cut car­bon. In every­day terms, the build­ing of new nuclear pow­er sta­tions to pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty is like­ly to mean high­er fuel bills.

The report con­cludes that this cor­rup­tion of gov­er­nance can only be rec­ti­fied if Par­lia­ment re-opens this debate, and MPs vote on this issue hav­ing seen the cor­rect infor­ma­tion.

EDF’s plans to dis­rupt lives and liveli­hoods by dig­ging up the 400 acres land­scape and beau­ti­ful coast­line in the com­ing weeks has already begun with the trees, says local cam­paign­er Sarah Stone “We man­aged to get an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order last year because the trees were threat­ened by this devel­op­ment, but WSDC refused to make it a full order after six months because they claimed they’d giv­en per­mis­sion to EDF to trash the site even though to date this deci­sions is still not pub­lished. This whole appli­ca­tion has been char­ac­terised by lies, deceit, and cor­po­rate bul­ly­ing it’s made a com­plete joke out of the British plan­ning sys­tem and if they won’t pro­tect the trees until there is a prop­er deci­sion about nuclear new build then we will”
*************************************ENDS**********************************************************
Notes to Edi­tor
1) Cor­rup­tion of Gov­er­nance report was pub­lished last week and pre­sent­ed to min­siters at Par­lia­ment. It can be found here www.ukace.org
2) The trees were sub­ject to an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order last March which was dropped by WSDC in Octo­ber last year.
For inter­views con­tact Theo on 01749860767 or 07805666239

south west against nuclear
swanactive@gmail.com
www.southwestagainstnuclear.wordpress.com