A meeting of Sedgemoor District Council’s Executive Committee held on Wednesday (March 23rd) passed a series of resolutions in response to the latest proposals from EDF Energy for a new nuclear power station.
Sedgemoor chief executive Kerry Rickards expressed increasing frustration with a lack of evidence from the company on significant elements of its plans for the main site and associated developments.
“We recognise that progress has been made on certain aspects of EDF’s ‘Preferred Proposals’ in the Stage 2 Update and Proposed Changes but we are concerned that a lack of information has led to the full impacts remaining unclear to either the councils or the wider communities,” he said.
And Andrew Goodchild, West Somerset Council’s planning manager, said councillors were finding it difficult to support EDF’s current proposals because they still fall “woefully short” of satisfying some of their major anxieties.
Councillors are not satisfied that full consideration had been given to the impacts on local communities. They feel the plans lack sufficient long-term benefit to the area, lack adequate compensation for the negative and more intangible impacts and lack investment in infrastructure and permanent housing.
Mr Goodchild commented: “We have a duty to our communities to explain to government and to EDF Energy that we still have very significant and unresolved concerns about the proposals in their current form.”
The two councils’ detailed responses to EDF’s updated proposals also include concerns about the real number of jobs likely to be created for Somerset; about the EDF preference for temporary accommodation for construction workers rather than permanent housing, and the lack of evidence to support predictions on traffic volumes with the necessary strategic responses on infrastructure investment.
