30 Mar 2010

In HInkley's Shadow

In Hinkley’s Shadow

Chris Ledgard looks at the impact Hinkley Point nuclear power station has had on the surrounding Somerset communities, in particular the Quantock village of Stogursey. Featuring Stop Hinkley campaigners.

Listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rmr68/In_Hinkleys_Shadow/

The villages around Hinkley Point in Somerset have lived with nuclear power for nearly half a century. As plans are developed for a new power station, Chris Ledgard investigates life in a nuclear community.

In medieval times, the village of Stogursey on the edge of the Quantock Hills was a market town. Over the centuries, its importance diminished. Then work began on a nuclear power station on the Somerset coast just 2 miles away, and Stogursey found itself in demand again - families flooded in and the school sent its overspill to the village hall.

In Hinkley's Shadow is a portrait of a nuclear community. The first generation of Britain's nuclear power workers are now retired. At Hinkley, their children are now working on the site. So how is it to have grown up in the shadow of a nuclear power station? Chris Ledgard talks to people who work in and around Hinkley, including a mud horse fisherman, said to be the last in the world, who fishes with a sledge he pushes out into Bridgwater Bay. And as the debate on the new station, Hinkley Point C, develops, the anti-nuclear protestors enter another battle. But what happens to a protest movement as it nears middle age?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting little programme, but rather one sided. EDF plan to overrun the small village of Cannington with a huge park & Ride, freight consolidation depot & hostels for 320 workers, all as part of the Hinkley C new build. Shame the programme production team has not taken the trouble to visit us in Cannington & see what we will have to endure. There was very little mention of the effects on the over-subscribed A39 road which will take even more heavy traffic. Even more outrageous no mention of the 1989 Barnes report carried out at huge expense to the taxpayer, which EDF have chosen to ignore. Alex Reed Cannington.

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