Campaigners have written to Member of Parliament for Suffolk Coastal, Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, about the billions spent on nuclear project Sizewell C, after costs were speculated to end up spiralling to £40 billion.
The long-term expense of the project has come into question after it emerged that spending on another nuclear power station that is being built by French state-owned developer EDF is expected to be in excess of £40bn.
Cour des Comptes, the French state auditor, last week advised the energy company to delay an investment decision on the nuclear power station in Sizewell, after Hinkley Point C hit delays and refinancing difficulties.
It advised EDF to slash its financial exposure to the Hinkley Point C project before making a final decision regarding its investment in Sizewell C.
Campaign group Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) said the auditor’s advice “demonstrates there are external factors that are outside the control of the UK government that mean the project might not be completed”.
“There is the possibility that a final investment decision for Sizewell C may never be achieved – it is grossly irresponsible for government to continue the current arrangement of handing out a billion here and a billion there whenever the developer, French-government owned EDF, demand,” it wrote in a letter to the East Suffolk MP on Tuesday.
The group mentioned cost overruns at Hinkley Point C and said “the UK government choose to ignore the evidence and are pressing ahead with this risky project anyway”.
“If the project does not go ahead, the writing off of billions worthlessly invested and the cost of remedial work to make good the damage Sizewell C has caused to East Suffolk, will fall on the public purse,” it warned.
© PAThe same campaign group separately wrote to the UK’s National Audit Office on 6 January requesting a review of the government’s value for money and risk assessments that underpin the use of public funds to finance initial costs.
It wrote to the audit office’s comptroller again on 17 January in light of spiralling cost estimates, warning of the project’s “fragile” mounting finances.
Now it has sought backing from the MP for East Suffolk to halt Sizewell C due to what it describes as “environmental damage being inflicted by the project across vast swathes of the East Suffolk countryside, despite no final investment decision having been made”.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave harsh words this week when he said that he would stop a “challenge culture” that he said frustrates growth by blocking nuclear, wind and road infrastructure developments.
“We’re putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the NIMBYs and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation,” Starmer said Thursday.
He aims to launch a crackdown on legal cases brought against infrastructure projects by streamlining judicial reviews on consenting decisions, after data showed 58% of major infrastructure projects are taken to court.
The new plans unveiled by Number 10 on Thursday will strike out cases deemed “without merit” from appealing to Court of Appeal after hearings in the High Court.
TASC lost its appeal against a court decision to dismiss environmental concerns related to Sizewell in December 2023. A separate legal challenge against the project, which raised concerns around inadequate sea defences, lost a hearing in the High Court last month.
‘Not justified’
Campaigners claim that “unnecessary” works have been carried out at the nuclear power station site at Sizewell that are “not justified”.
These include felling of thousands of trees, grubbing out miles of hedging and covering areas under concrete and tarmac on the biodiverse heritage coast and surrounding areas of natural beauty.
“This amounts to wholesale environmental vandalism, especially when the project still not only lacks a final investment decision but also a final design of the all-important sea defences, has no guaranteed sustainable supply of potable water essential for its 60 years of operation, and with the nuclear site’s ground stabilisation trials remaining unfinished,” the letter said.
The group urged government minister to meet with local stakeholders, after the local MP met with campaigners in December. It expressed disappointment that the Secretary of State, Ed Miliband, had refused an invitation from East Suffolk Council “to discuss the cumulative impacts” of the project.
A final investment decision on Sizewell C is expected to be made as part of the government’s spending review in June 2025, but campaigners said according to the development subsidy scheme details that decision “could be as late as June 2026”, or “may never be achieved”.
The UK government has a controlling stake in Sizewell C owning approximately 80% of the development and has already spent £3.7bn of taxpayer funds on development and allocated a further £2.7bn for the current financial year.
Riddell-Carpenter was approached for comment.
