Concerned Locals take to the Trees at Hinkley Point near Bridgwater, Somerset

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.

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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”
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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