Campaigners opposed to government plans to build a nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast lost their legal challenge today (20 December).
Together Against Sizewell C has been campaigning for more than a decade to stop French energy giant EDF from building two nuclear reactors on the Suffolk coast.
It argues the plans will devastate local wildlife and change the area around the site from one of “rural tranquillity to brutal industrialisation”.
The plan was given the green light in July last year when then business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng granted planning consent, going against the advice of the examining authority.
TASC, using law firm Leigh Day & Co, brought a High Court challenge to the decision. However, Mr Justice Holgate ruled against it earlier this year. It appealed and the case went to the Court of Appeal last month.
During the hearing, TASC lawyers said the business secretary needed to guarantee how a permanent water supply of 2m litres per day for Sizewell C would be obtained before giving consent.
The campaigners argue that Mr Justice Holgate made a mistake in law when dealing with the issue.
However, the three-judge panel hearing the case disagreed, and ruled that the campaign group cannot take its challenge any further.
“We do not consider that the [lower court] judge erred,” they said in their ruling.
“He correctly concluded that the secretary of state was entitled in this case to regard the project as the power station, and that the provision of a permanent water supply was not part of that project but formed a different and separate project,” they said.
“He was right to conclude that it was rational for the secretary of state to defer appropriate assessment of the impact of the permanent water supply… to a later stage, because the information necessary for a proper assessment was not available at the time of his decision on the application for development consent for the power station.
“We therefore dismiss this appeal.”
Together Against Sizewell C Ltd v Secretary of State for Energy Security & Net Zero
Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Lindblom, Lady Justice Andrews, Lord Justice Lewis) 20 December 2023
