Four anti-nuclear protesters who chained themselves together outside Hinkley Point power station, near Burnham-On-Sea, have this week been fined £100 each after pleading guilty to ‘obstructing the highway’.
The four appeared before Taunton Magistrates on Wednesday (December 19th) when they were each given 12 month conditional discharges and ordered to pay £100 expenses.
They blocked the main access road last month and caused long tailbacks in protest at plans to extend the site.
Speaking after the verdict, tree surgeon Zoe Smith was in a defiant mood: “Two days after we used lock-on tubes to form a human barrier at Hinkley Point the same tactic was used at EDF’s other planned development at Sizewell in Norfolk.”
“This is a national campaign and I expect there will be many more surprises for EDF over the coming months. If the Tories are prepared to pressurise our local representatives, change planning laws, and rubber-stamp EDF’s reactor design without a rigourous safety assessment, then we are prepared to put our bodies on the line to oppose them.”
And Barnaby Hodges added: “I am proud of what we did. I have never been arrested for protesting before, but like many people in the area I am ready to take whatever non-violent action is necessary to prevent the building of a potential Fukushima.”
