A petition signed by more than 12,000 people opposed to the planned expansion of Hinkley Point power station near Burnham-On-Sea is to be handed in at Downing Street next week.
The Stop Hinkley campaign group has collected 12,750 signatures from people against the government department responsible for the UK’s policy on nuclear power.
Stop Hinkley spokeswoman Katy Attwater says: “The petition shows the strength of opposition to plans by energy company Electricite de France to build the UK’s largest ever nuclear power station.”
The petition will be handed in at Downing Street and at the Department of Energy and Climate Change in London on 6th December.
Members of Stop Hinkley will be accompanied by Burnham-On-Sea MP Tessa Munt and Green Party Leader and MP Caroline Lucas.
Addressed to Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the petition states: “We, the undersigned, strongly oppose the plan by EDF to construct a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Instead, a government-backed programme of energy saving and clean renewable energy would combat climate change and avoid the risks of a catastrophic accident, dangers to health and the storage of highly radioactive waste at Hinkley for 160 years.”
EDF recently submitted its application for construction of the power station to the Infrastructure Planning Commission.
EDF Energy says its application, which was submitted to the Infrastructure Planning Commission on 31st October, is the culmination of three years of extensive informal engagement and formal consultation.
“During the formal consultation, EDF directly engaged with almost 6,500 consultees, held 34 public exhibitions and 67 meetings with local authorities and other stakeholder groups, and attracted 109,000 visitors to its project website. More than 2,000 formal responses were received, from which 33,000 comments were processed in a detailed consultation report, which forms part of the application,” said a spokesman.
