Plans for new Essex plant alarm conservationists and come on top of worries about security implications of China’s involvement in UK nuclear industry

Conservation charities have expressed alarm at plans for a Chinese-built nuclear power station in Essex, with one saying the plant could have “major impacts” on the estuary location, a haven for birds and marine life.

The new reactor in Bradwell, on the heavily protected Blackwater estuary, east of Chelmsford, could be confirmed this week during a state visit to Britain by China’s president, Xi Jinping.

The conservation concerns come on top of worries over the security implications of Chinese involvement in the UK nuclear industry.

Bradwell is home to one of the UK’s earliest nuclear power stations, which is being gradually disassembled after ceasing operations in 2002. The new plant would be built on adjoining land owned by the French energy company EDF.

While some residents near Bradwell welcome the possibility of jobs associated with another power station, objectors say the massively more powerful new plant, designed in China, would require huge amounts of cooling water and could badly affect the delicate ecology of the shallow and slow-moving estuary.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said it feared a new reactor could have a significant effect on the environment and wildlife in the Blackwater and Dengie sites of special scientific interest, as well as wider nature protection areas, including the outer Thames.

“The proposed new nuclear power station at Bradwell has the potential to have major impacts on the site and surrounding area on the Essex coast, which includes several nationally and internationally designated protected wildlife sites,” said Mark Nowers, the RSPB’s conservation officer for Essex. “Safeguarding the wildlife and habitats of these fragile natural areas should be foremost in any plans for the site.”

Thomas Hickey, from the Marine Conservation Society, said the estuary was designated a site of special scientific interest, a special area of conservation and a special protection area for birds, as well as a marine conservation zone for its native oyster beds.

“Concerns around Bradwell chime with wider nervousness regarding the management of marine protected areas,” he said. “We welcome the government’s pledge to complete the ecologically coherent network of MPAs but they must be well managed and not just paper parks.”

The Times reported last week that UK security chiefs had expressed concerns to ministers about the proposed investment of Chinese companies.

The People’s Liberation Army, which is heavily involved in many Chinese companies, has special units whose sole aim is hacking into private firms overseas to try to gain an edge or steal the latest technological developments. The US surveillance agency, the NSA, and its UK counterpart, GCHQ, also target these units as well as various establishments in China.

A GCHQ spokesman, speaking about the general remit it is given by the government rather than specifically about this particular investment by Chinese companies, said: “GCHQ has a remit to support the cyber security of private sector-owned critical national infrastructure projects, including in the civil nuclear sector and nuclear new builds, when invited to do so by the lead government department involved.”

The US government has repeatedly and openly expressed concern about the extent of cyber attacks originating in China aimed at American companies as well as military and intelligence targets.

The existing Bradwell power station buildings, clad in scaffold and sheeting, look over a flat expanse of farmland and marsh towards the exposed 7th-century chapel of St Peter’s, one of Britain’s oldest surviving churches.



In Bradwell, the village closest to the power station, one resident, Lorraine Williams said she would not welcome a replacement nuclear plant. “I do worry about what it would do to the environment,” said the 49-year-old property developer. “When the old power station was operating, if you went paddling the water was sometimes warm, and you’d see lots of jellyfish.

“But it would be the extra road traffic that would make me move. We already get 1,000 vehicles a day going to the old power station. If they build it, I’ll rent my house to a Chinese engineer and live somewhere sunny instead.”

At the village’s volunteer-run shop, others were more keen about the prospect of a new reactor, though less keen to give their names. Most had either worked at the old plant or had relatives who did. “I spent 15 years showing tour groups round it,” said one woman. “My husband was an engineer. We never had any problems with it.”

The main protest group, Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group, is based across the estuary in West Mersea. Andy Blowers, who heads the organisation, is an academic and nuclear waste expert, and was a member of the government-appointed Committee on Radioactive Waste Management.

He said the amounts of cooling water needed for the new plant would either badly damage the local ecosystem, or require the construction of pipelines several miles to the sea.

“This isn’t a nimby position,” Blowers said. “We think it is an absolutely inappropriate site, a completely irresponsible place to put it.

“The government is basically saying: ‘We’d like to sacrifice the Blackwater estuary in order to lever-in Chinese investment, for them to do a demonstration on how good their plant is, to flog it elsewhere.’ I don’t understand why we should be a platform for that.”

When the original plant was constructed, the site, a former second world war airfield, had to first be raised above sea level. Blowers said of the plans for a new reactor: “Why put this on a site that is so vulnerable to climate change, storm surges, all of that? What people forget, this thing isn’t here today, gone tomorrow. It’s got something like a 60-year lifespan, and beyond that you’re going to have radioactive waste on that site, I would say, indefinitely.”



In a statement, the Department for Energy and Climate Change said new nuclear power stations were “a vital part of our long-term plan to provide secure, clean energy supplies”. It added: “Before any new nuclear site can start generating low-carbon electricity, there are a number of planning, safety and security standards to meet, along with further consultations.”