EDF: 'Local authority rules "straitjacket" Hinkley construction'

EDF Energy has accused local councils in Somerset of trying to “straitjacket” its £10bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project with rules and restrictions on contractors.

Last month, Somerset County Council, West Somerset Council and Sedgemoor District Council produced a joint Local Impact Report (LIR) that recommended halving the number of high tides the firm could use at a nearby coastal wharf to bring in materials, limiting lorry movements on local roads and restricting working hours at the site.

The report, which was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate, which is currently considering EDF’s application for permission to build the nuclear power plant, also proposed that local authorities should be given powers of approval over accommodation blocks for workers on the site, a “construction method statement” for the project and parking management and car sharing plans.

The councils said all these measures were necessary to limit the impact on local residents.

But EDF said that such rules would delay the project.

A spokesperson for EDF said: “All these and the multiple other controls which are suggested in the joint LIR would impose a straitjacket on the construction project of a type which would make its daily delivery subject to the control and approval of the planning authorities.

“No construction project should expect this level of control, particularly not one which is urgently required in the national interest.”

The councils have also expressed concern that the accommodation campuses, which EDF proposes to build in nearby Bridgewater to house around 1,000 workers, do not offer a suitable legacy of affordable housing for the town because they do not have individual cooking facilites.

But EDF said in its response that contractors Balfour Beatty, Vinci, Laing O’Rourke and Bouygues, who are all bidding to work on the £1.2bn civil works package on the project, had given their backing to the campus model.