Sizewell C Community Forum meets

Community leaders from East Suffolk gather to hear feedback on Sizewell C proposals.

Over 100 people gathered last night for the Sizewell C community forum held at Stratford St Andrew.

The community forum examined the issues that were raised during the stage 2 consultation which ran between November 2016 and February 2017.  The group also discussed next steps leading up to Stage 3 formal consultation.

During the meeting, Jim Crawford, Sizewell C project development director, thanked everyone for attending the event, encouraged members to ask questions and engage fully in the consultative process.  Jim described the feedback from Stage 2 as: “High in volume and quality from a wide range of residents, community groups and their representatives”.

Jim spoke about the need for Sizewell C and the commitment to take the time to get the plans and mitigation right and the importance of proving the business case for the project: “One of my principal tasks is to make the business case for Sizewell C to be the next affordable nuclear generation project in the UK. This can be achieved by the replication of the design of HPC, supply chain innovation and an exploration of financial models which can help incentivise investment.”

Carly Vince, EDF Energy Chief Planning Officer, took the group through the key areas that came up in feedback around the main development site, the accommodation campus, the transport strategy for construction and the benefits the project would deliver to the local community.  The feedback was grouped into themes, such as transport and the environment and most covered the construction phase of the project.

Speaking about this, Carly said:  “This qualitative feedback approach draws out what is really important to people, what issues matter most such as community impact and benefits during the construction phase and managing the environmental impacts of building the station.”

It is best practice during consultation to provide open and transparent feedback to communities during the planning process.

Overview of Stage 2 Consultation activity

• Over 70 public exhibitions, meetings and presentations
• 1,059 responses received (1,298 at Stage 1)
• All statutory and non-statutory responses have been analysed and grouped by theme – a qualitative process focussing on the issues raised
• All substantive responses have informed initial views on the way forward on options, further technical and environmental assessments and engineering studies

The Sizewell C Community Forum

EDF Energy established a Sizewell C Community Forum for the discussion of local issues during the planning process between EDF Energy, elected representatives of the local community and other stakeholder groups on the proposed development of a new nuclear power station at Sizewell.

Brian Stewart OBE, former chief executive of the East of England Regional Assembly, is the independent chairman of the Community Forum.