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Memorandum submitted by Mrs
S Millar (NPS 47)
Summary
I would like to draw the committee's attention to the following points:
· Lack of consultation prior to nomination
· Flawed SSA consultation
Introduction
I am a resident of Silecroft, a small West Cumbrian village about 1000
metres from the new nuclear site at Kirksanton.
I have been running a successful bed and breakfast business in the
village for several years. Prior to that
I worked in environmental education for nearly 20 years.
Factual Information
Community consultation.
1. Community consultation prior to nomination
was non-existent for our village, despite the fact that we are only about 1000
metres from the site. Many of the houses
look out over the fields to the site; we are well within sight.
2. I will detail the sequence of events that
made me aware of the proposal of the site, since it essentially mirrors that of
all other Silecroft residents.
3. 25th Feb 2009: the local paper
published a story suggesting that a site 'near Millom' might be nominated. I don't take the paper, but a friend
mentioned it to me.
4. Following press pressure to know exactly
where this site was to be, RWE finally issued a press release announcing the
site around 4th/5th March. The road to town was closed that week, so I
didn't see a newspaper and was unaware until later.
5. My first knowledge of the actual position of
the site came from a chance meeting with a resident of Kirksanton (during that
first week of March) whilst walking my dogs on the footpath, which currently runs
through the proposed site at Layriggs.
She told me that RWE had sent a letter to 40 or so residents of
Kirksanton during that week, but no such letters had been sent to anyone in
Silecroft.
6. On 10th March public meetings were
apparently announced in the press.
Again, I was unaware. On 11th March a Kirksanton resident
took it on himself to distribute the DECC 'Have your say' leaflets door to door
in Silecroft. I spoke to him and he
mentioned a possible meeting at Kirksanton. However, Kirksanton residents were
concerned on the one hand that their neighbours in Silecroft had no such
meeting offered, and on the other hand that their village hall could not
accommodate Silecroft residents as well as their own villagers. However, they invited some representatives of
Silecroft to attend.
7. I, and several others from Silecroft,
attended the packed meeting, but did not feel that we should take up time
expressing our views, since it was Kirksanton's meeting, and they had plenty of
questions.
8. Finally, on 7th April, after the
nomination date, I received a letter from RWE.
Only those Silecroft residents who attended the meeting and left their
details received such a letter. The
majority of Silecroft residents, therefore, have never received any
communication from RWE either before or around the nomination date, or during
the consultation process. The only
official communication remembered by those I have spoken to is the 'Have your
say' leaflet, delivered by the Kirksanton resident as mentioned above. In fact, to date, no communication from RWE
has ever been received by the majority of this village.
9. I do not consider that it is satisfactory to
rely on people happening to see articles in the press as a means of informing
and engaging with local residents.
Leaving any effort at communication until less than a month before a
totally unexpected green field nomination is made is also totally unacceptable.
Flawed SSA consultation
10. You will be aware that in the SSA
consultation, Kirksanton attracted about a third of the total responses. Many flaws, inaccuracies and untruths in the
report by ARUP were pointed out.
11. Some of these have been noted, and corrected in
the current draft NPS documents.
However, a considerable number of mistakes have persisted into the
current HRA and AoS documents for Kirksanton.
These will be doubtless be pointed out again by those of us who respond
to the current consultation, but we can no longer have any faith that the
information we give will be taken into account.
12. For the purpose of this written evidence, I will
give just one example. The original ARUP
document submitted for nomination said that 'the site is subject to man-made
defences' (D2, page11). Several
people who responded during the SSA consultation pointed out the fact that there
are no man-made defences at or near the site, yet the mistake has not only
been repeated, but also compounded, in the AoS for Kirksanton, eg 'strengthening of coastal defences' (page
13,14), 'improvement of coastal
defences' (page 16), and even 'the site is defended by a coastal defence scheme
comprising of armoured protection and constructed in 1993' (page 31).
13. Flooding, rising sea levels, coastal erosion
and disruption of the dune system in the adjacent Ramsar/SPA are all major
factors in assessing the suitability of this site, so errors such as that above
are of major concern. They make a
mockery of the consultation process to date, and give little cause for
confidence in the present consultation.
Recommendation for action
14. Serious, genuine attention to the process of
consultation before major mistakes are made.
January 2010
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