Sizewell C opponents lose their appeal

A legal challenge against the planned construction of Sizewell C nuclear power station has fallen.

Opponents to the Suffolk nuclear power plant lost a High Court challenge back in June and yesterday against lost again in the Court of Appeal.

Campaign group Together Against Sizewell C argued that the government had failed to consider the environmental implications of the 3.2GW project and, in particular, the potable water supply implications.

Together Against Sizewell C, jointly with Suffolk Coastal Friends of the Earth and Stop Sizewell C have issued a statement following the Court of Appeal’s decision to deny its judicial review claim.

“We are dismayed by this decision and struggle to understand how the potable water supply that £30bn+ Sizewell C is totally reliant on for its 60 years of operation can be considered lawfully, or indeed rationally, as a separate project, particularly as its absence caused the panel of five expert planning inspectors to caution against Sizewell C being awarded planning consent,” they said.

On the wider issue of the government's policy, the campaign groups said: “Government seems hell-bent on continuing this reckless and blinkered rush towards the cliff edge of deeper national bankruptcy and continued environmental damage in its vain attempt to reach net zero carbon by 2050 through betting taxpayers' money on nuclear power. It will not work. The real tragedy, however, is that we’ll all have to go down with the nuclear ship as the policy unravels and sinks over the next 20 years and as the climate change crisis deepens.

“The Office of Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency have the power to stop Sizewell C; we can only encourage them to step up, flex their regulatory muscles and call Sizewell C out for the polluting, unnecessary and wasteful white elephant it is and refuse to licence it. We call on external investors to shun it. The alternative is that we have to watch the slow and painful demise of the government's misguided policy while climate change delivers its promise to be an existential threat to the planet. Our fight for the soul of Suffolk will continue and we are in discussions with our legal team to consider our plans moving forward.”