Labour's nuclear dream has destroyed my home: inside the Sizewell C planning row

Telegraph

18-06-2025

Eastbridge, a small Suffolk village two miles inland from the coast, surrounded by marshland, has looked much the same for centuries. Over the past year, however, it has been transformed. Huge swathes of the surrounding countryside have been dug into a strange lunar landscape of sand and soil to make way for construction associated with Sizewell C, including a vast accommodation campus for workers on the outskirts of the village. The scale of the site is only really clear from aerial photographs, which shows a patchwork of grey, orange and brown where there once was lush green.
And this is just the beginning. Last week, the Government pledged £14.2 billion for the project at Sizewell, which will eventually provide low-carbon electricity for six million homes for a lifespan of 60 years. The only published overall cost for the scheme was £20 billion in 2020, but it has reportedly now ballooned to over £40 billion. Still a fair price, many argue, for a source of 'clean, homegrown power' – as Ed Miliband says – to future-proof Britain's energy security. Inevitably, however, it has faced fierce opposition from residents in the surrounding area, with some locals arguing the Government hasn't counted the true cost of the lengthy construction period and the damage to the natural landscape and neighbouring communities.
Alison Downes, the director of Stop Sizewell C, began campaigning against the project in 2013 on the grounds of the impact on the local area. 'In the early days we were trying to persuade the project to amend its proposal, including the location of the [accommodation] campus at Eastbridge,' she says. 'It was of grave concern that it was proposed for 3,000 people – it's gone down a little bit, but not much.' Then, she says, as she learnt more about the project, 'all these other issues [came] to the fore.'
Downes, a career campaigner, has wisely focused on scrutinising Sizewell on issues of national, rather than localised, importance. Stop Sizewell C argues that the project is bad value for money, will be too slow to address climate change (it will take at least 10-12 years to build, according to the EDF), and will ultimately load too much risk onto the taxpayer.
Sizewell C is supposed to be built to almost exactly the same specifications as Hinkley Point C – which has spiralled in time and budget – using European pressurised water reactor (EPR) technology.
'It was very clear that the EPR reactor specifically had this terrible track record wherever it's been built,' says Downes. 'The local issues are still of great concern. But the main thrust of our campaign has been about those macro issues in terms of sizes, role in the UK's energy mix, about the sort of unpredictability of the delivery track record, cost over funds and budget, schedule overruns…'
For others, the local impact still looms large. Peering through the metal fencing that encircles the 900-acre site are Chris Wilson and Jenny Kirtley, two other residents who have protested against the construction of Sizewell C for more than a decade. They are both part of the Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) group, the other of the local campaign groups.
Kirtley, who grew up in nearby Leiston, says the site chosen for the project 'is not fit for purpose,' due to the country roads, the rapidly eroding coastline, and fact that the site is within the Suffolk Coasts and Heaths National Landscape and so should be protected. The RSPB has joined in protesting against the site on the basis of its proximity to the Minsmere nature reserve, saying last year that: 'We believe that wildlife will be damaged during the lengthy construction period and will be in a worse state once development is completed.'
Kirtley hoped the change in government would mean a change in approach to the Sizewell C. It was granted planning permission under the Conservative government, by then-business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, in July 2022 (despite the Examining Authority recommending it not be approved due to water supply and nature concerns). However, no such change has been forthcoming – instead, Labour have doubled down.
In the words of Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Britain will enter a 'new golden age for nuclear' with the 'biggest building programme in a generation'. The scheme will ultimately be paid for by households and businesses through their electricity bills – this includes levies that will begin during the construction phase.
'Some of us have waited years for Labour to get in,' says Kirtley. 'Our last MP [Thérèse Coffey] was really the cause of all this, because she promoted East Anglia as the energy coast. So, I'm afraid Labour will never get in [here] again.' Wilson adds: 'They're just not protecting the area.'
Last week's announcement of government funding has not deterred them; TASC have launched a new legal challenge against Sizewell C on the basis that large additional sea defences stretching inland would have to be installed in a 'credible maximum' climate change scenario; these were not included in the project's Development Consent Order (DCO) application and so were not subject to public scrutiny.
Wilson's key concern, meanwhile, is the devastation the site would wreak on marine and wildlife, including in the adjacent RSPB Minsmere. TASC has claimed that more than 500m fish could be sucked into the new power station's cooling system if construction goes ahead. (The Government's Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) has said the fish mortality rates caused by Sizewell C would be 'sustainable'.)
When the site was approved, Wilson says, 'it was an ideological thing that just overrode all the environmental damage.' If it goes ahead, he says he will move. 'I just couldn't cope with seeing everything ripped up. I've been retired for 10 or 12 years now, and I've spent a lot of that retirement just fighting Sizewell C. I don't want to spend the last 10 years of my life just watching the destruction.'
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kirtley also campaigned against neighbouring Sizewell B, and says it turned the next town over, Leiston, into an 'absolute nightmare' as the traffic worsened and an influx of temporary workers pushed prices up and caused trouble in the pubs. 'We went to visit two years into the build of Hinkley Point C, and you have no idea what the traffic was like,' says Kirtley. 'And Hinkley's feeder town is Bridgwater, which has a population of 50-60,000 – we've got 6,000 here in Leiston, and they are already struggling.'
These concerns are borne out in the town centre. One young couple in Leiston say 'rent has doubled, or even tripled'. At the time of writing, family homes were listed online for £3,000-£4,000 a month. Nick Darcy, a pub landlord, also remembers the problems Sizewell B caused. 'They tell us that 'it'll be great for business,' but it's not,' he says. 'All that will happen is loads of contractors will come out, and we'll make marginally more money for about 70 per cent more hassle.' During the construction of Sizewell B, he explains, the town was a 'war zone' as locals clashed with out-of-town contractors and fights in the pubs were commonplace.
Moreover, he argues the impact – both on traffic and the local environment – has already proved to be greater than the last time. 'A local ex-MP came in with leaflets against Sizewell C a couple of years ago, and I said, 'I run a bar in a nuclear town, that relies on nuclear business,' and wouldn't hear anything against it,' he continues. 'But now seeing them digging out my entire town in the process, my attitude has done a complete 180.' One of his patrons, who introduces himself as Terry, agrees. 'I helped build Sizewell B,' he says. 'This time, they've destroyed the place, ripped all the trees down. It's heartbreaking.' He recognises, however, that there are 'two sides to the story.'
The other side, apart from the energy the new nuclear station will provide, is the jobs and opportunities Sizewell C says it will bring to the area. Last month, Sizewell C announced it would build a new post-16 college in the area, due to open in 2027; it has also pledged to deliver 500 jobs for people in Ipswich and 500 jobs for people in Lowestoft. However, critics argue that roughly half of the site's staff – and a much higher proportion of those in highly skilled roles – will be directly transplanted from its sister project at Hinkley Point.
Downes describes the government's funding announcement as a 'massive blow.' Still, however, she hasn't given up on campaigning for the project to be dropped entirely. 'There are so many uncertainties down the line,' she says. 'Basically, it isn't over 'til it's over.'