A recent parliamentary event saw consensus that the Nuclear Regulatory Review’s (NRR) recommendations are flawed and will only remove environmental protections
MPs from across parties, experts, and peers all spoke about the recommendations and the nature crisis in construction.
The event was titled “Don’t turn the nature crisis into a catastrophe” and utilised a report by The Wildlife Trusts as its evidence.
The report highlights inaccuracies in the NRR
The NRR makes recommendations to reduce the environmental protections that it claims makes it too difficult to build nuclear infrastructure. However, the report commissioned by The Wildlife Trusts counters these points, instead saying that the evidence that the NRR is based on is flawed.
If recommendations from the NRR are adopted, the Habitats Regulations will be weakened, and the required duty to National Park and National Landscape authorities will be lessened or removed entirely.
Aside from the fact that no environmental experts serve don’t he review panel, the report shows some other contradicting details in the NRR:
- The review claimed that fish protection measures at Hinckley C nuclear power station will cost £700 million. The actual cost of the fish deterrent system is £50 million. This £50 million is in the context of an overall project cost of £46 billion, up from an original £18 billion due to ballooning costs that are nothing to do with the environment.
- The review claimed that that fish protection measures at Hinckley C will protect just 0.08 salmon, 0.02 trout and 6 lamprey per year. The actual numbers from research carried out by Environment Agency suggest that 4.6 million adult fish per year could be killed per year without protection measures, a scale of wildlife destruction which would have significant consequences for ecosystems across the internationally important Severn Estuary. Many of these fish are already rare or endangered.
- The review’s author was reported in the press as claiming that a single bird had halted work at Wylfa nuclear plant. In fact, the Planning Inspectorate stated there were significant and varied environmental objections to the development, including the loss of multiple colonies of threatened bird species and damage to three Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
The Wildlife Trusts report can be read in full here.
“The PM is mobilising a new assault on the natural world”
Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said: “Recent changes to the planning system have resulted in the first regression of the laws that protect nature since World War II. Now the PM is mobilising a new assault on the natural world by threatening to adopt suggestions made by a poorly informed advisor. If his plans go ahead, the PM will turn the nature crisis into a catastrophe.
“The dice were loaded from the start – the nuclear review confirms a false narrative that was already been being circulated by certain industry lobby groups and think tanks. The errors in the review form a clear pattern: repeated exaggeration of the costs of preventing harm to nature – and minimisation of the impact to wildlife of nuclear development without those measures. The fact that no environmental experts served on the panel is a disgrace and the resulting distorted picture obscures the value the natural world delivers for economic stability and net zero.
“There is limited evidence that environmental protections impose undue costs on infrastructure developers. In fact, evidence shows that frequently cited examples of expensive mitigation measures originated from developer mistakes and were unconnected to environmental issues. Blaming nature is unacceptable and a way of avoiding accountability.”
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