Bacton gas terminal owner welcomes Starmer nuclear pledge
On Thursday, the prime minister said he would "take on the blockers" and change planning rules, so new nuclear reactors could be built.Viaro bought the Bacton terminal last year and in October said it had agreed a partnership with US firm Terrestrial Energy to develop a reactor project in the UK.Since then there has been speculation from energy industry websites that it could develop a small nuclear plant at the Norfolk site.
The company said it was "still in the early stages of planning an evaluation of siting, macro-economic and policy factors to confirm the viability of the nuclear plant project".It added: "Only once this initial phase is completed will Viaro and Terrestrial be in a position to complete a detailed evaluation of potential target sites, including external factors on which the realisation depends, before any concrete plans for a plant are made, for what will be a complex multi-year endeavour."Mr Aquarone said it would be better to develop hydrogen production at the Bacton processing plant, which is 20 miles (32km) from Great Yarmouth and provides about one third of the UK's gas supply."To make green hydrogen we need renewable energy, and I have today reiterated my call for more of the offshore wind infrastructure to help support the future electricity requirements at Bacton," he added.
Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ITV News
16 minutes ago
- ITV News
Majority of public back housing and developments in their area
A majority of people back the idea of new housing or developments where they live, new data has indicated. The poll of 2,005 people conducted by Public First in July found that 55% of respondents would 'generally support new buildings or developments or buildings being built in my local area'. The research found that Labour backers (72%) and young people aged 25-34 (67%) were most likely to be 'Yimby' (yes in my backyard). Reform backers (44%) and people in the East of England (44%) were the most likely groups to say that they generally oppose development in their locality, the poll found. Overall, 33% of people said that they would generally oppose development. Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to put 'builders not blockers first' and 'overhaul the broken planning system'. In December, the Prime Minister announced new mandatory targets for councils when it comes to housebuilding. He said at the time: 'Our plan for change will put builders not blockers first, overhaul the broken planning system and put roofs over the heads of working families and drive the growth that will put more money in people's pockets.' In its report, The Quiet Yes, released on Thursday, Public First argued that a 'more representative planning system' is needed. The policy research organisation recommended that councils bring in changes to surveys and research on public opinion on building plans and questions about how residents would want councils to spend certain money earmarked for development. Jack Airey, director of housing and infrastructure at Public First, said: 'Most people instinctively support new development, yet their voices go unheard. 'Our research finds the public understand the housing shortage and back new homes, but the planning system doesn't reflect that reality. 'Councils and Government should build on this majority view, creating a representative planning system that unlocks support for new homes and the infrastructure communities need.' Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has said that Labour are 'overhauling the broken planning system'. She said: 'With investment and reform, Labour is delivering the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation, unleashing a social rent revolution, and embarking on a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing in this country.'
The Herald Scotland
31 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Majority of public back housing and developments in their area
The research found that Labour backers (72%) and young people aged 25-34 (67%) were most likely to be 'Yimby' (yes in my backyard). Reform backers (44%) and people in the East of England (44%) were the most likely groups to say that they generally oppose development in their locality, the poll found. Overall, 33% of people said that they would generally oppose development. Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to put 'builders not blockers first' and 'overhaul the broken planning system'. In December, the Prime Minister announced new mandatory targets for councils when it comes to housebuilding. He said at the time: 'Our plan for change will put builders not blockers first, overhaul the broken planning system and put roofs over the heads of working families and drive the growth that will put more money in people's pockets.' In its report, The Quiet Yes, released on Thursday, Public First argued that a 'more representative planning system' is needed. The policy research organisation recommended that councils bring in changes to surveys and research on public opinion on building plans and questions about how residents would want councils to spend certain money earmarked for development. Jack Airey, director of housing and infrastructure at Public First, said: 'Most people instinctively support new development, yet their voices go unheard. 'Our research finds the public understand the housing shortage and back new homes, but the planning system doesn't reflect that reality. 'Councils and Government should build on this majority view, creating a representative planning system that unlocks support for new homes and the infrastructure communities need.' Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has said that Labour are 'overhauling the broken planning system'. She said: 'With investment and reform, Labour is delivering the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation, unleashing a social rent revolution, and embarking on a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing in this country.'
Spectator
33 minutes ago
- Spectator
Where have all the upper-class Tories gone?
A currently fashionable conservatism is militantly against Ukraine and, by more cautious implication, pro-Russia. We who disagree are, I quote Matthew Parris in these pages last week, 'prey to the illusion that the second world war was a template for future conflict, and Hitler a template for Putin'. Others put it more unkindly, speaking of 'Ukraine brain' as a mental affliction among the Cold War generations. One should not project the entire second world war on to now, but some similarities with the 1930s are undeniable. Dictator exploits resentment at what he says is an unequal treaty after defeat; claims land in various places as the true property of his people; occupies some of it, changing borders by the threat of force, later by direct force; keeps demanding more; keeps threatening. The European democracies mostly dislike what is happening, but understandably wish to appease. As it all gets nastier, some incline to criticise the behaviour of the victim nations and their leaders (Benes then; Zelensky now) and downplay the sins of the aggressor. Matthew, for example, wants Zelensky to 'get off his high horse' without noticing that Putin's horse is much, much higher. The United States wants as little to do with it as possible. Dictator has a much firmer purpose than his democratic opponents, so he wins. At first, only the direct victim suffers. Later, all of us do. This argument is not exact, but it is not idiotic either. Elsewhere in this week's issue, Ursula Buchan writes about her grandfather John Buchan's time at The Spectator, the grounding for his career in political life and as a celebrated novelist. His very first article for the paper (20 January 1900) was called 'The Russian Imperial Ideal'. Buchan identified 'the two parties in the [Tsarist] government… both vigorous, one demanding internal reform, the other seeking external empire. At present she seems to have chosen for the latter, but… an Empire and commercial supremacy can only be built upon a genuine and healthy national life, and Russia, while she has the materials for such a life, has hitherto neglected to use them. Militarism and economic reform, where the former is so triumphant and the latter so urgent, are the lion and the lamb which will never lie down together.' They never did, though Gorbachev tried. The lion ate the lamb long ago. Tom Gordon, a Liberal Democrat MP, is leading a campaign to recruit more working-class people for parliament. He praises the few 'salt of the earth guys who are making it all happen' in his part of England (Harrogate and Knaresborough: not, it must be said, a super-working-class area). Mr Gordon does not confront the problem that nowadays the working class has been almost abolished, partly by the largely good trend of upward mobility and partly by the largely bad one of a welfare system which pays the poorly educated not to work. Looking at the 2024 intake of MPs, I would say that by far the greater problem is that so many, whatever their family roots, came into politics through politics/activism/politicised charity work, and know about nothing else. Looking at the question in class terms, I would say the more noticeable absence is members of the upper class. Nearly 40 years ago, I commissioned a scholarly piece (The Spectator, 3 May 1986) by the late Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd called 'The Descent of Tory Man'. It analysed the social class of all Conservative MPs at that Thatcher high tide and found 19 (including William Waldegrave, Nicholas Ridley, Lord Cranborne and Nicholas Soames) in the top social class, 33 in the second highest, 86 in the third, and the majority (there were 392 Tories at that time) in classes four to ten. Trying to apply that analysis to the present 121 Conservatives, I can think of only one – the wise and public-spirited Jesse Norman – who could be described as upper-class, and even he might have reached only class 2 according to Massingberd's exacting criteria. What applies to the Tories applies, a fortiori, to all MPs. So when parliament is more despised than at any time since the Great Reform Bill, it is also the least aristocratic it has ever been. Are these two phenomena related? I wish all the argument about pronouns had been raging when I was a teenager. That was the time when it first became commonplace to address God as 'You' in the liturgy and in translations of the Bible. I was against the change then because it sacrificed beauty, but I could never quite answer those who said it was better to speak to God less formally and more intimately. In my then ignorance, I did not know that 'Thou', as is the case with the second person singular in many other languages, was historically the more intimate and loving form, and so I did not understand that the plural 'You' was the more distant one. The use of 'You' is also theologically inaccurate, since it grammatically implies that there is more than one God. The Trinity, after all, are not some things. It is one thing. Recently, I booked a hotel room in the north of England. We could have 'de luxe' or 'superior'. It was explained to me that superior, in this context, meant inferior: de luxe had been recently 'refreshed'; superior had not. We were inclined to take 'de luxe', but then I asked whether de luxe had baths. No, it had only walk-in showers. Superior, however, had baths. So we took superior, thereby saving more than £100. This must be the first generation in human history which has paid less for a room with a bath than for one without. Why the change? I can think of four possible reasons: 1) Americans prefer showers. 2) Showers save water, and therefore the planet. 3) Showers save space, and therefore property cost. 4) Many customers are too old or fat to get out of baths. In another generation, will baths be objects only of historical interest, like mangles?
