How the arrival of one Arctic tern halted work on entire nuclear plant
Critical infrastructure projects can be delayed for years by the “arrival of a single Arctic tern” as Britain is “too risk adverse”, the author of a government report has said.
This week John Fingleton, former boss of the Office of Fair Trading, made headlines with his report into barriers facing nuclear power development and the revelation that more than £700 million is being spent at Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset on measures expected to save 0.083 salmon and 0.028 sea trout a year.
The 162-page report laid bare the reality of building in the UK: British nuclear plants are the most expensive ever. But Fingleton has told The Times that the issues he identified with nuclear building are systemic or wider issues.
A single Arctic tern delayed the Anglesey nuclear project
ALAMY
“I think we should be able to debate whether we have become too risk averse as a society to be able to grow,” he said. He pointed to the fact that if building a new nuclear site, three separate impact assessments are required.
“They’re big, lengthy documents, and they’re done for three different regulatory purposes. It should be one that goes to a single regulatory assessment. That would get rid of a lot of the duplication,” he said.
“I think the government needs to be much clearer and say, ‘this is where we’re going to build’ and the planning system then just needs to deal with the mitigations of that. We spend far too long taking the decision we’re going to do something, and then deciding it again and again. We need to decide these things once.”
He said risk adverseness also affected political decision-making because if ministers “approve something and then something bad happens, they get blamed for it”.
Environmental concerns cause huge delays with building and Fingleton pointed to Horizon Nuclear Power, which was due to build a plant at Wylfa in Anglesey, but was delayed — and in part cancelled — because of the impact building it would have on Arctic and common terns.
“An Arctic tern turned up in Anglesey,” he said, which put a pause to the project. “With the habitat stuff, as with fish [at Hinkley point] and the bats [near HS2], you have to wait to see the annual cycle. So if you think you’re going to break ground and suddenly a bird turns up then you have to wait a year. And even then the new mitigation plan might not be accepted.”
The bat tunnel alongside Sheephouse Wood on the HS2 route
Crucial projects including HS2, the Lower Thames Crossing and Hinkley have all been bogged down in rows over environmental concerns. A protracted legal battle, followed by a change in government, led to the cancellation of the A303 Stonehenge tunnel.
Another issue, Fingleton believes, is how projects have an engineering-rich, design-poor approach which pushes up the cost.
He said: “An engineer will come up with a solution to a problem and it’ll throw out the need for a 10.5mm screw. And then instead of applying judgment and going back and redoing it so it produces a standard 10mm screw, they set up a production line for a screw that doesn’t currently exist.”
He said that in another instance a bespoke crane was designed for a scheme instead of making minor adjustments so an off-the-shelf one could be used.
Part of the reason the cost of HS2 has ballooned is that ministers, engineers and civil servants “gold-plated” the project, including the possibility of 248mph trains — which would be faster than the French TGV. Local objections to the scheme mean there will be 30 miles of tunnels between London and Birmingham while 300 bats in Buckinghamshire are protected by a £100 million “bat tunnel”.
HS2’s Lawley Middleway Bridge over Birmingham’s main ring road
PHIL BARNETT/PA
Fingleton said his report presented “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” to bring down the cost of projects, give Britain cleaner energy and ultimately reduce bills. The recommendations of his report have been accepted in full by the government.
One wish though is just to get on with things.
“Look at Ukraine and its ability to rebuild power facilities and so on,” he said. “If you have a real crisis, you have a really strong focus on what has the biggest return in the shortest amount of time. It focuses the mind. It’s very difficult to simulate a crisis, but why can’t we get better at thinking about what’s really important and what’s not?”