Examination of Witnesses (Questions 550
- 559)
WEDNESDAY 27 JANUARY 2010 (afternoon)
MR PETER
LANYON, MS
VARRIE BLOWERS
AND MR
BARRY TURNER
Q550 Dr Whitehead:
Welcome Mr Lanyon, Ms Blowers and Mr Turner. Could you please
introduce yourselves for the record?
Mr Turner: My name is Barry Turner.
I am the Vice Chairman of the Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group
(BANNG).
Ms Blowers: I am Varrie Blowers.
I am the Secretary of the Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group
otherwise known as BANNG.
Mr Lanyon: I am Peter Lanyon,
and I am representing both the Shut Down Sizewell Campaign and
the Communities Against Nuclear Expansion.
Q551 Dr Whitehead:
Mr Lanyon, perhaps you would like to make your presentation.
Mr Lanyon: Thank you. The Shut
Down Sizewell Campaign is an NGO of approximately 300 members,
locally and worldwide, maintained by private subscription for
over 24 years—we formed just after the Chernobyl disaster—opposing
nuclear power stations on the Suffolk coast, and Communities Against
Nuclear Expansion (CANE) represents a body of local people in
the vicinity of Sizewell, Suffolk, who are opposed to further
nuclear expansion. The organisation includes a number of teachers,
doctors, former civil servants, campaigners and former councillors
with experience of the impacts of two nuclear power stations and
the plans for further reactors at Sizewell. Mr Wright has asked
me to talk chiefly about the impressions locally of the DECC meeting
and exhibition on 3, 4 and 5 December. The general local opinion
is that the whole thing is a done deal already. They will not
take any notice of us, so why bother? They did not take any notice
of the Sizewell A End State when they had a consultation about
that and we said we wanted it to go back to a greenfield site,
so they will not take any notice now. We know it is in the wind
that they are busy screwing up the planning laws so we cannot
take part in planning inquiries anyhow and, therefore, all this
stuff that DECC are coming down to exhibit and meet us about will
just be a load of whitewash. There will be lots of suits and smart
talk and it is being held at the industry's own posh sports and
recreation centre, so we know what we can expect. That is the
feeling, and that was the feeling that we had to try and cope
with when the two organisations suddenly realised that we could
not stand back and take this, we had to do what we could. To get
into the NPSs, as everyone here knows, is a monstrous task. It
is very bad for NGOs, as Jim Duffy has already told you. I understand
there is something like 2,000 pages to be read and ours is one
of the first meetings and exhibitions DECC put on, so we had even
less time to read them than anyone else. It is very difficult
for us; it is impossible for members of the public in a place
like Leiston, near Sizewell, to even get a feeling for what is
going on. What ought to have been public consultation when DECC
came down to Sizewell is not what in fact turned out. Public consultations,
under the Aarhus Convention, are supposed to be at a formative
stage when there is still the possibility of changing things.
That is not the case here, unless your Committee will throw it
out. It has already been decided. The whole thing is not capable
of change. Moreover, if you read the NPSs, they are overwhelmingly
persuasive from start to finish. They are tendentious, they are
arguing for a cause and, when they do talk about whether Sizewell
is suitable, it is all mitigating circumstances to improve what
they are already deciding they are going to impose on us. Public
consultations are not meant to be anything of that sort. Therefore,
it is an enormous burden for anyone who wants to get involved
around Sizewell to turn that sort of tendentious argument round
to see it from our point of view, and for that sometimes—because
the NPSs are written by experts—we needed counter-experts,
particularly about the land issues of the access road but also
about other things. We asked for an extension of time so that
we could consult some experts—difficult enough over the
Christmas break. That was refused. The inadequate time also contravenes
the Aarhus Convention, but so does the lack of public participation
which actually happened at Sizewell. What should have happened
was that there should have been deliberative discussions, dialogue,
which could have been involved in developing the public ownership
of the problem so the public could have turned round and said
what they really thought about it. There was none of that sort
of iterative process at all. The next public meeting at Leiston
was neither deliberative nor participative. There were about 140
people there on 5 December. The extraordinary thing was that most
of them were people we had managed to rouse because we had heard
of the meeting through the Internet, which was just about the
only place it was publicised. The other extraordinary thing about
the people there was that there were no young people at all[2],
and yet this is going to be their problem and their descendents'
problem. There was virtually no-one there under about 40 or 50
years of age. The publicity was negligible. I have not been able
to find a copy of any leaflet or poster that was put up, and that
is the way that people in rural East Suffolk and the small towns
of Leiston, Saxmundham and Aldeburgh get their information. There
was, I believe, a notice in the local paper, but not everyone
reads the local paper, and I still do not know which paper that
was. The meeting lasted 165 minutes. The DECC officials and the
facilitators spoke for 55 minutes, which left us with less than
140 minutes, which means that if everyone wanted to participate
they would have had less than one minute each to both speak and
to get an answer out of DECC. It was farcical, and that was all
there was. It is sad, because when we went into the hall we found
that the seating was arranged in a chatty fashion around tables,
with about six seats to a table; so we said, "Whoopee, they
are going to have a workshop, or a seminar, or something. They
are going to get us involved." Not a bit of it. It was presentations
from DECC, two long 20-minute presentations, plus facilitation
which picked out one or two speakers, but nothing like all the
speakers who wanted to talk. What should have happened, if they
really wanted to know what the people of Leiston thought about
the NPSs, was discussions, a workshop, a panel, a forum, a citizens'
jury, or something like that, which are all well-known ways of
finding out what the public think. I take my example from the
excellent public consultations run by Lancaster University about
the ISOLUS project of nuclear submarines. This had none of those
sorts of interactive discussions at all. The only other thing
at Leiston was DECC's exhibition, which I visited on two of its
three days. When I was there it was very poorly attended, and
that is probably because it was a considerable way out of the
town in pretty hostile weather for two of the days. On the third
day the meeting moved into the town. Once again, the two occasions
I spent there, and the first time I was there for a couple of
hours, there was no-one under about 50 who went in. The atmosphere
inside was a sort of awed hush, because one felt intimidated by
the glossy pictures around the wall and also by the persuasive
arguments of the big print which was staring out at you about
the thing. There were some intimidating state-of-the-art computer
things running. Most of us, including myself, in that part of
the world are not maybe as computer literate as DECC is, but it
was not the way to find out what the people of East Suffolk thought,
and the tendentious tone, again, of what we were presented with
was very unpleasant to anyone who, like myself, does not agree
with it. Either one feels disempowered and one walks out or one
gets antagonistic, and that was unfortunate, because the staffing
of the exhibition was charming, polite and amiable. One of the
biggest pictures there was quite blatantly wrong. It suggested
that the new power stations as Sizewell were going to be just
one reactor building and a pond, and that is rubbish. Everyone
there knows it is rubbish because they know what the present two
stations look like, particularly the second one, and they knew
that the future nuclear stations (and there will be two reactors)
will be bigger and more intrusive too, and so that was plain wrong.
I believe that picture was removed on the third day, but I did
not see it myself. More important, perhaps, was the fact that
there was no realistic presentation at all of the colossal threat
of the access road. That is going to cut straight across an AONB,
an SSSI, is going to make a mess of a Ramsar site, it is going
to be plumb next-door to the RSPB's famous reserve at Minsmere
and it is going to be a blot on the entire heritage coast. Yet
at the exhibition this was completely minimised. There was no
display which in any way suggested what that was going to be like.
Q552 Dr Whitehead:
Mr Lanyon, I am afraid I am going to have to ask you to bring
your remarks to a close in a moment.
Mr Lanyon: Thank you. The effect
was that that was mitigation: it was making it better. I would
like to stop there and just conclude by saying that that consultation
(and that was all it was, the exhibition and the meeting) failed
to engage the people of East Suffolk and thank you for engaging
me instead.
Q553 Dr Whitehead:
Thank you. Ms Blowers and Mr Turner.
Mr Turner: Good afternoon. I would
like to start by reading out a recent quote: "The more I
hear about what is being proposed for Bradwell and the way in
which it is being done, the less I can see how it can be agreed
with." This was a statement made only just over a week ago
by a local mayor in the Bradwell and Blackwater area. He had received
a response from DECC to a letter that listed the local towns'
concerns about having a new Bradwell Power Station, and the response
that came back was described as being superficial and evasive,
nothing was answered at all, which was somewhat like the consultation
processes that we have already experienced. We think that the
example of this mayor and his view illustrates the reactions of
most of the people once they hear and realise what could happen
if a new nuclear power station or, indeed, maybe three new power
stations are built at Bradwell. I will not read to you all of
our submission, because that would use up valuable time, but I
would like to give you a flavour of it, in case you have not read
it. Looking at the executive summary, it goes, "The Government's
process of consultation on the draft nuclear NPS cannot, by any
standard, have been deemed to be open and effective. It has failed
to clearly inform people around the Blackwater Estuary of the
main differences between the operation of a new nuclear power
station, or power stations, at Bradwell and the operation of the
old power station". Basically, people assume it is more of
the old. It is not. "We believe effective communications
would have resulted in residents understanding the following differences,
which most, sadly, are only just beginning to realise but many
are in ignorance". The main points: high level radioactive
waste could be stored on site for 160 years or more—that
is something like five or six generations. DECC hopes that by
then a national repository will have been built somewhere to accommodate
this, but , of course, this cannot be guaranteed. What happens
if that does not get achieved? We do not know. A new more powerful
nuclear power station would require far more cooling water from
the relatively narrow and shallow Blackwater Estuary. If you are
not familiar with it, it is not a large, wide open to the sea
span of water, it is a relatively limited shallow stretch of water
that goes only ten miles up to Maldon and it is mostly surrounded
by mud flats. It is extremely shallow. The concern is that far
greater volumes of water would result in far more serious damage
to fishing and oyster industries, to the ecology and the marine
life in general, let alone things like holidays and tourism, which
are very prevalent in the area. There is a proposal to build two
additional nuclear power stations at Bradwell. These would require
cooling towers due to a lack of sufficient cooling water in the
estuary. The location for this very large nuclear complex, which
would be built next to the partly decommissioned power station,
is a vulnerable and very low-lying site and it is rated, the majority
of it, at flood risk three, which is a high risk of flooding.
Somehow this has got to be securely protected for 160 years, or
more, against increasing threats from such things as rising sea
levels, flooding, storm surges and tsunami. Another point is that
Mersea Island is only two miles downwind of this complex. Mersea
Island is an island. The only access is across a narrow causeway
called The Strood. It is an old Saxon access road. This road regularly
floods and, if you wish, I can leave you with one of our timetables
because if you get the tides wrong you cannot get on or off the
island; you are stuck. It has a population of some 7,500 people.
We are not quite like Anglesey perhaps, but in the summer this
rises to 15,000 because of the holiday season. A lot of holiday-makers
come to the island; there are chalets, mobile homes and all sorts.
In 1962, when the old place was built, there were only 3,500 or
maybe only 3,000, I am not absolutely sure, but it is claimed
that with this large increase in population we do not need an
emergency evacuation plan. This is in spite of the fact that sometimes
people would not be able to get off the island, and this is quite
extensive periods. It is claimed that one is not necessary because
the threats from a new nuclear power station are vanishingly small,
and we are supposed to believe that and think we can sleep happily.
Hang on: why do they not build it in London then? We know it is
not true. Then there are other claims. Increased employment would
benefit all local communities. This is very questionable because
Bradwell is not particularly accessible to anybody who lives on
the north side of the estuary. The roads are narrow and winding;
it is a long, arduous journey, even though the north side might
be only two or three miles away. On the contrary, we are convinced
that the presence of a prominent nuclear complex is just as likely
to cause a decline in major employment in the valuable tourism,
holidays, sailing, fishing and oyster cultivation industries around
the Blackwater Estuary. Incidentally, I do not know if you are
aware of it, but the River Blackwater is a prime source of native
oysters. This is in the report, but it provides a lot of work
to people. As far as I can tell, and I am not an expert, I do
not have the time, we think there are at least 100 people primarily
involved in native oyster cultivation. They are world renowned;
they export them all over the place. The continuation of this
would be under extreme threat because of the huge volumes of cooling
water and the addition of biocides to keep the cooling systems
clean. Somehow we are supposed to accept with confidence that
this can all be mitigated and no harm will be done. Again, if
you read this you will see that there is strong evidence that
extreme harm was done when the old operation was going. It only
closed in 2002. There were no oysters on the south side of the
estuary in the vicinity, one and a half miles either side the
flora of the estuary was bleached and bare, but the old operators
denied that it was anything to do with what they were doing, which
is clearly not true. This can only get worse with a new one, because
the estuary has only got limited volumes of water. Clearly it
is going to need something like three times the new volume if
it is an EPR that is put there. Nobody really knows what the effect
will be, but somehow we are expected to be happy and believe that
this can all be mitigated. This is really the point we believe.
The whole process seems to be a bit of a rush to approve an unsuitable
site. We think there is extreme bias in the whole process. We
have got this massive collection of reports, that has already
been mentioned. Somehow we are supposed to find the time to read
and understand all these things and give you feedback. Certainly
we cannot do it in ten minutes or in eight pages of submissions—it
is impossible; there is just too much of it—so this has
got to be ploughed through by us and other interested members
of the public, and it is extremely difficult to do. What we find
when we read this stuff is that when it comes to making opinions
as to the suitability of the site and the surrounding influencing
factors—some of which I have mentioned but not all of them
by the way—negatives are usually avoided. There is very
little mention of negative aspects, there is plenty of mention
of positive aspects and they seem to be exaggerated, and we are
supposed to believe that this is a balanced, unbiased report.
I am sorry; clearly, it is not. What we are supposed to do is
feel satisfied that this is a good method of determining what
should happen at Bradwell and, anyway, if this process fails,
there is the fallback of overriding national imperative, which
seems to be there to force a decision through—and that is
regularly mentioned in all of the reports—so, if the IPC
does not accept this, you have got it anyway; hard luck to people
in the Blackwater. We think this is a pretty poor process. As
I say, there is too much to talk about, but even if you just look
at the appraisal of sustainability (and I know I have got very
little time left), there are so many examples where things are
just not mentioned. It talks about the benefits of increased employment;
it does not talk about the threats to the industries that already
exist there, many of which, I think, would vanish. If you do not
know Merseyside, there are beach huts facing the existing power
station. Okay, it is closed now, but if we have a massive new
complex, I cannot imagine many people wanting to come to the island
for a holiday with the threats. I know we are supposed believe
it is safe, but that cannot be guaranteed. I suspect I have had
my time. I could go on for a long time, but this stuff is so biased.
It is not a valid, balanced report and, I am sorry, it seems to
go through the whole process. I am only repeating what has been
said already. I just think it is very disappointing. Incidentally,
BANNG is not comprised of totally anti-nuclear people—not
at all. Most of the people, probably at least 60 per cent, are
not necessarily opposed to nuclear, they just think Bradwell is
such a ridiculous place to choose to put something that has got
to be protected in a difficult site against all the uncertainties.
Incidentally, we had an earthquake some years ago. It was before
there were ways of measuring it, but it is probably one of the
biggest ones that happened in the UK. That gets scant attention
in any of these reports. I could go on and on, but it is a flawed
document, and I think we should expect it to be a balanced document
which reports favourably on risks as well as benefits, the threats
to people's jobs, the threat to the surrounding infrastructure
or maybe the result that other new industries are disinclined
to come to the area because they do not think it is a suitable
place. I will hand over to my colleague, if I have not used up
too much time. Thank you.
Ms Blowers: I would like to make
several criticisms relating to the Government's consultation process
and make a few comments on the National Policy Statement EN-6.
First of all, BANNG is extremely concerned that the proposal to
have long-term, for 160 years that is, highly radioactive spent
fuel on the Bradwell site has been rolled into and subsumed in
the consultation on the proposal for a new nuclear power station.
The Government is well aware that the public has deep anxieties
about radioactive waste and seems to be avoiding open and transparent
consultation on this very important issue. BANNG believes that
there must be a separate consultation process dealing only with
the proposal for the storage of this spent fuel. Otherwise communities
will have this dangerous waste foisted on them without any say
at all in the matter. This is not only undemocratic, it is down
right dishonest. The DECC exhibition and public meetings. The
venues for the DECC exhibition and public meetings were quite
selective. None of them was held in any of the large centres of
population in the area: Colchester, Chelmsford, Clacton or Southend.
There were events held in Maldon, but none in Colchester, which
is much larger and closer to Bradwell. The advertising of the
events was quite inadequate and, as a result, thousands of people
have been denied the opportunity to take part in any debate. BANNG
found itself in the position of having to inform people of the
events and of prompting them to attend. The local press has reported
that the people of Bradwell village itself, right next to the
site, are very angry that a public meeting was not held there
and feel they are being denied any say in discussions. It was
left to members of the public to raise the issue of long-term
nuclear waste storage on site at all the meetings, and the responses
that were received were quite unsatisfactory. I should also mention
that the document on the management of nuclear waste was not on
offer at either of the DECC public meetings in Maldon or at West
Mersea. The format of the meetings was not conducive to proper
public engagement, with questions from the floor receiving responses
from the platform with little opportunity to question unsatisfactory
responses. I will move on to the consultations on the various
stages. BANNG has made substantial and well informed responses
to each of these consultations on strategic siting assessment,
justification and the "Have your Say" on site nomination.
Scant attention has been paid to these. Virtually no changes were
made and responses from the Government have been general rather
than specific. In the responses justification the request made
by BANNG and several other groups for a public inquiry into further
new nuclear practices in the form of new nuclear power stations
could be justified. It was just completely ignored. BANNG has
made every effort to comply with government consultations and
to make serious and well evidenced criticisms of government documents.
It is extremely frustrating, demoralising and disappointing when
these are substantially ignored. Members of the public actually
tried to take part in the Have your Say consultation and struggled
with this because it was so complicated. I will move to the consultation
on the draft energy National Policy Statements and justification.
Q554 Dr Whitehead:
I am going to ask you to draw your remarks to a close very shortly.
I appreciate there are two of you.
Ms Blowers: Perhaps I will just
skip over the NPS except to say that it is clearly a green light
for the development of nuclear power stations. I would just like
to say something about BANNG. I think that BANNG has done a lot
more than the Government to raise the public's awareness in the
Blackwater area about what the Government's proposals are and
also about the storage of waste. Although it is not perfect, the
BANNG petition appears to represent the only real effort of large-scale
face-to-face consultation in the country. Our findings are going
to surprise the Government, which asserts that existing nuclear
communities welcome the prospect of hosting new power stations.
The thousands of people approached so far by BANNG have made it
clear they do not want a nuclear complex at Bradwell. To conclude,
BANNG believes there is no proper and open consultation on the
proposal to store highly radioactive nuclear waste on site at
Bradwell in the long-term. This storage raises technical, social
and ethical issues which can only be addressed through a completely
separate public consultation process. The consultation process
so far is seriously flawed, the procedures are unbalanced, unfair
and do not represent the viewpoints of local communities. There
is a complete absence of effort by government to find out what
these communities really think about new nuclear build in their
areas. Therefore. we conclude that the national policy statements
are not fit for purpose and we appeal to this Committee to use
its influence with government to insist that a proper, open and
transparent consultation should be undertaken. Either that or
the Government should scrap what already has happened and start
again.
Q555 Dr Whitehead:
Thank you very much. Perhaps I could make clear to Mr Lanyon,
Ms Blowers and Mr Turner, and, indeed, to all our witnesses this
afternoon, should you consider that there is anything you really
wanted to say but did not have time to say it, or were not able
to say it, or there is information in addition to the submissions
you have made to the Committee, the Committee would welcome any
further written material that you may want to provide.
Ms Blowers: Thank you very much.
Q556 Sir Robert Smith:
Could I raise some specific questions with Mr Turner about the
earthquake. When was it roughly?
Mr Turner: It was 1884, so it
is a long time ago, but I believe it is calculated to have been
somewhere in the order of 5.6.
Q557 Sir Robert Smith:
It has not been addressed at all?
Mr Turner: No. If it has, it has
been kept secret.
Q558 Mr Weir:
Mr Lanyon and Mr Turner, like other witnesses, both of you have
raised concerns about the consultation process. Could you tell
me what period of notice you were given of the public meeting
and what you are aware of as to publicity? Mr Lanyon said he thought
it was maybe in one of the local papers. How many local papers
are there in the area? A previous witness said there was a radio
advert. Were you aware of any such adverts in your area? Again,
Mr Turner, there is mention in your paper about DECC claiming
to have distributed 11,000 leaflets in your area, but nobody seems
to have got them. Can you tell us a bit about what you know of
the publicity that took place in your area?
Mr Turner: To take the leaflets,
when it was brought up at the meeting how little publicity there
had been, bear in mind there was no announcement of where our
meeting would take place until a matter of seven days beforehand.
It had not been announced. I tried the website—most members
of the public would not know about the website, but I did—and
it listed a meeting date but no venue. When we ran the meeting
there was a question raised that most people did not know about
it except on the initiative of a local newspaper reporter who
actually put a notice about the meeting in that paper, which is
widely circulated in our particular area anyway, but when it was
asked how many people had received a leaflet after this claim
of over 11,000 being distributed, only three people out of, I
think, 58 put their hands up—that is all. There were claimed
to have been adverts put in other local papers in Colchester and
elsewhere, but there was no evidence that people had reacted to
that. Also, I should point out that the consultation in West Mersea
was conducted on a working day in the early afternoon. People
who are working had to take time off or miss it. People are very
sceptical about the whole process because of the apparent dishonesty
of what we are being told about how we are supposed to have been
involved and yet it is almost a secret.
Q559 Mr Weir:
Mr Lanyon.
Mr Lanyon: I no longer live close
enough to Sizewell myself to have been in the position to receive
any of the leaflets, but I have not been able to find anyone who
has received any of the leaflets. You are right, it was in the
local newspaper. It was in the East Anglian Daily Times,
which is the area newspaper. I do not think it was on any radio
programme, I have not heard it was, but the thing that did impress
me was that the great bulk of the people that did go to the meeting
were those who probably were informed by us after we got it through
the Internet. The general complaint is, "We do not look at
the Internet; so we did not know about it until the last moment."
As to when we first heard about it, I heard about it about a fortnight
before at the start of the last week in November, and it was on
3, 4 and 5 December, but that was through the networking NGOs
I belong to. I do not remember exactly when DECC announced it,
but I could find out for you, and I certainly will.
Ms Blowers: Would you mind if
I just told you what happened to me at Maldon? The DECC exhibition
was being held in the town hall there on 11 December. I was standing
outside in the freezing cold collecting signatures for the BANNG
petition, and almost everyone I approached knew absolutely nothing
about the exhibition or about the public meeting that was due
to take place in Maldon the next day. In the interests of openness
and democracy, I directed people to the exhibition. I arrived
at the exhibition just before half past ten originally and I was
clocked in as the first person to appear, and it had started at
8.30. My husband followed shortly after; he was the second. I
think there was quite a lull until I cottoned on that people did
not know about it and sent them into the exhibition.
Mr Lanyon: Could I add that one
of the great troubles was that it was in the run-up to Christmas,
and it is not the sort of time that people are going to get involved
in things like this when they are already disposed to thinking
it is a done deal already. There are just too many consultations
going on and people have become fed up with them.
2 Note from the witness:
"There was one person there under 20, who made a most pertinent
comment." Back
|
