Flotilla against new Bradwell nuclear reactor sails on Essex coast

On Sun­day, 9 August, a flotil­la of 20 boats, many with colour­ful ban­ners say­ing ‘Save the Black­wa­ter estu­ary and ‘No to new nuclear’ and fly­ing yel­low and white sheets from their masts, sailed from West Mersea and oth­er loca­tions on the Black­wa­ter to Brad­well. The 50 or so sailors on board were protest­ing against the new nuclear pow­er sta­tion and high­ly radioac­tive nuclear waste store pro­posed for the Brad­well site.

Sev­er­al of the boats sailed along the West Mersea shore in front of pro­test­ers and hol­i­day mak­ers before head­ing over to Brad­well and anchor­ing in front of the old sta­tion.

Some of the sailors land­ed on the Brad­well beach and asked those who were there enjoy­ing the beau­ti­ful weath­er to sign the BANNG (Black­wa­ter Against New Nuclear Group) peti­tion. The peti­tion asks the Gov­ern­ment to reject the pro­pos­al to build a new sta­tion and demands that the old sta­tion site be returned to green­field with­in 25 years of clo­sure, as orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed, and not the 100 years it is report­ed it will now take.

Var­rie Blow­ers, the Sec­re­tary of BANNG said: ‘We believe that what is pro­posed would have a detri­men­tal impact on the envi­ron­ment and marine ecol­o­gy of the vul­ner­a­ble Black­wa­ter estu­ary, par­tic­u­lar­ly on its oys­ter, fish and huge over­win­ter­ing bird pop­u­la­tions. The estu­ary is a beau­ti­ful ameni­ty which is enjoyed by sailors and mem­bers of the pub­lic alike. All those who love and fear for the Black­wa­ter need to protest at these pro­pos­als.

BANNG believes that the Brad­well site is par­tic­u­lar­ly unsuit­able for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion and waste store. As well as being on a shal­low estu­ary, it is liable to flood­ing and increased inci­dence of storm surges as a result of cli­mate change. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly opposed to the pro­duc­tion of yet more high­ly radioac­tive spent fuel which would have to be stored on site for more than 100 years, when there is not even a solu­tion in prospect for deal­ing with the wastes that already exist’.

Charles Clark, who organ­ised the vig­il, said: ‘The vig­il is the sec­ond in a series of protests organ­ised by BANNG. The first, before East­er, drew atten­tion to the impos­si­bil­i­ty of evac­u­at­ing Mersea Island in the event of a nuclear inci­dent. The pur­pose of Sunday’s vig­il was to draw atten­tion to the poten­tial impact of the pro­pos­als on the Black­wa­ter estu­ary itself. We were very pleased with the turnout of boats and sailors and the pos­i­tive reac­tion of peo­ple on the Brad­well beach to the peti­tion’.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about BANNG and the peti­tion con­tact Var­rie Blow­ers (Tel.: 07932.644482).

We want to high­light:

* Envi­ron­men­tal dam­age to the Estu­ary fore­shore, wildlife, plea­sure and com­mer­cial fish­ing and local oys­ter indus­tries
* Poten­tial restric­tion on access for recre­ation­al use to the Estu­ary and its fore­shore
* Long term on site stor­age of high­ly radioac­tive waste
* Increased health risks to sur­round­ing pop­u­la­tion result­ing from tox­ic waste and from the lack of long term evac­u­a­tion plans for the sur­round­ing areas
* Neg­a­tive Visu­al impact of the new facil­i­ty and the reten­tion of the for­mer sta­tion