Representation by Mark Hoare RIBA
- Date submitted
- 30 September 2020
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
No one disputes that the UK needs long term energy security but additional nuclear capacity is not a sustainable or safe choice, and is certainly not appropriate in Suffolk. The east coast is increasingly serving as a gateway to offshore wind generation - renewable energy is the future, while nuclear is technology of the past. Nuclear is expensive to build, expensive to run and the costs of the waste legacy are at best guestimates. Our future must be in developing renewable energy and storage potential while managing and siting the associated infrastructure sensitively to take account of neighbours, landscape character, heritage and ecology. Storage technology is progressing rapidly year on year, and by the time Sizewell C might become operational we can reasonably expect significant advances to have been made in storage capacity and renewable generation. Increased investment in renewable energy would be much more compatible with Suffolk's aspiration to be the Greenest County and the drive towards more renewable energy. To allow such a large nuclear power station to go ahead in the county would undermine this Greenest County initiative which has been led by the county council for over a decade, and which has considerable grass roots support. There are legitimate local concerns about impacts on tourism and the rural economy, heritage and ecology, and transport, as well as the impact on those who live close to Sizewell and are therefore more vociferous in their objections. The regional economic benefits of a large incoming construction workforce will not outweigh the harm to tourism or the negative impact on regional spending from loss of tourism. It is self evident that a family staying in a holiday cottage whilst on holiday for a week in Suffolk will visit more local businesses than two or three workers using the same holiday cottage as a dormitory for work, and probably leaving the county for the weekend to drive home to their families elsewhere. And it is self evident that increased traffic and congestion is off-putting to tourism as well as impacting on local residents and businesses. These and many more concerns are well expressed by community groups and key stakeholders, along with the environmental and ecological impacts. The Sizewell expansion is also being promoted without co-ordination with other local potential major projects which will only further exacerbate local and regional negative impacts if more than one major infrastructure project goes ahead concurrently. Suffolk is creative and open-minded, an outward-looking county which attracts tourism and the arts of international significance - it is forward looking while being respectful of its own heritage. It is not a hotbed of NIMBYism. Suffolk aspires to be the Greenest County and wants to play its part. It recognises that it can contribute to the wider energy needs of the UK beyond its county boundaries, and that there may be a local price to pay for this, but Sizewell C is not a price worth paying.