UK: Greenpeace flag legal action over nuclear power plans

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace today issued a fresh threat to take legal action against the British Government over the building of new nuclear power stations.

The group won a High Court ruling earlier this year which led to the Government holding a second consultation on its plans for nuclear power.

Mr Justice Sullivan called the first consultation “seriously flawed”, so another exercise was launched, with the Government expected to announce support for nuclear power stations in the New Year.

Greenpeace said today that proposals following the second consultation would not be legal, claiming this was also “flawed.”

The group claimed that the Government’s preliminary view was “so fixed” that it undermined a proper consultation and prevented an open and transparent process.

A letter to the Government from Greenpeace’s lawyers argued that the consultation “creates the impression that the problem of nuclear waste has been solved, when no such solution has been found.”

Ben Ayliffe, head of Greenpeace’s nuclear campaign, said: “This is yet another flawed consultation from the Government. They have no idea what to do with nuclear waste, meaning they simply can’t give the go-ahead to a new round of nuclear power stations.”

The legal warning came as Business Secretary John Hutton announced a massive expansion of offshore wind power in the UK.

John Sauven, Greenpeace executive director, said: “The UK Government setting out a strategic direction for offshore wind in the UK on this scale is obviously welcome. But the government needs to get beyond good intentions to actually deliver real action on meeting the targets.

“The Government should ditch the current complex, bureaucratic and inefficient support mechanisms for renewable energy in favour of long term guaranteed ’feed in tariffs’ favoured by all of our European partners.

“Germany has managed to develop a huge renewable energy industry, employing 250,000 people with massive export earnings because of solid backing from the government. In comparison the UK, despite having the best renewable energy resource in Europe, languishes at the bottom of the renewable energy league table.

“While Germany has ditched plans to develop nuclear energy and has gone all out on renewable energy this government is still bogged down trying to resuscitate the nuclear industry. It’s time this government got serious about putting the country on a low carbon energy pathway.”