John Little
18-Apr-11, 18:55
Parliamentary debates 5 April 2011
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con): It is a pleasure to speak about the preservation of Britain’s built civil nuclear heritage, but I understand that the topic might at first seem rather obscure, if not obtuse, to many Members, and the timing peculiar. First, I must declare an interest as a member of the Twentieth Century Society, which campaigns to preserve examples of built heritage and modern architecture for future generations. I am not here to debate the merits or demerits of nuclear power—I am sure we will have plenty of debates on that in the months and years to come—but rather to draw the Government’s attention to the fact that as the decommissioning process for nuclear power stations begins, those buildings come to the end of their industrial usage and we have to consider whether we wish to preserve them for future generations.
There might be arguments about whether such buildings should be preserved. Those against nuclear power might wonder why anyone would wish to preserve a nuclear power station, but let me quote Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth, who told The Sunday Times on 19 November 2006:
“We need to be reminded of the huge amounts of money they wasted and the radioactive legacy they left us. We should preserve these buildings as a monument to all that stupidity”.
Equally, those of us who are more positive about nuclear energy and think it still has a role to play might think that we should celebrate and protect examples of our world-leading role in developing civil nuclear power. It is often forgotten that we were at the forefront of developing the use of nuclear power for civil means. Just as Ironbridge and the Pontcysyllte aqueduct are examples of Britain’s greatness in the 17th and 18th centuries, Dounreay, Hinkley Point and Windscale, or Sellafield, are examples of our greatness in the 20th century. We need to retain that sense of heritage and it is vital that we debate what to do with them and understand their heritage value. They certainly have architectural value, but they also have a quite separate heritage value. As English Heritage’s 2006 report on our atomic age made clear:
“Nuclear installations due to their size have also created distinctive late 20th-century landscapes…The power station sites are overshadowed by the large rectangular architectural blocks of the reactor buildings and turbine halls which in turn dominate their usually low-lying coastal locations and often provide focal points in the landscape for many miles around”.
My experience, from living on the coast in Blackpool, is of walking out of my front door and being able to see the rectangular block of Heysham power station shining from 20 or 30 miles away across Morecambe bay. It is a major landmark in the local area. It does not quite compete with Blackpool tower, but it is certainly always on the horizon. We have to realise that in those communities the role of nuclear power has been not just one of environmental concern or energy production, but one of building communities. Places such as Sellafield and Dounreay have been major providers of jobs, and communities have sprung up out of nowhere. Just as many Opposition Members fiercely defend the interests of coalfield communities and the heritage of mining that has gone on for many years, we should not lose sight of the importance of the communities who have contributed to building our nuclear industry.
That is why it is vital to take notice of the current consultation process being carried out by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. In September 2010, it announced its initial intention that
“none of our facilities will be preserved for national heritage”.
On one level that is understandable, as one cannot divorce the heritage component of a nuclear power station for the obvious reason that it has a high degree of radiological risk associated with it. Take, for example, Trawsfynydd power station in north Wales, which was not listed, not because it had no architectural value—far from it, as it was designed by Sir Basil Spence, who designed Coventry cathedral—but because it was sitting on a toxic time bomb and the costs of preserving that toxic time bomb outweighed its architectural value. Conversely, Cadw, the Welsh heritage agency, has at least registered the equally notable garden by Dame Sylvia Crowe and the associated landscaping that surrounded the power station. That shows that we can preserve heritage not just by preserving something that is toxic or radiological but by understanding the wider heritage aspects.
That is why I welcome the fact that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has grudgingly conceded that a national nuclear archive will be established at Dounreay as part of its decommissioning process. I urge both Dounreay and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to consider fully what they mean by nuclear heritage and what they intend to retain in the archive. It must not merely hold photographs of the buildings, but provide an understanding of the lives of the people who built those power stations, made them a success and relied on them for their livelihoods. It is vital that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has a coherent plan to protect them for future generations.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/20.htm
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con): It is a pleasure to speak about the preservation of Britain’s built civil nuclear heritage, but I understand that the topic might at first seem rather obscure, if not obtuse, to many Members, and the timing peculiar. First, I must declare an interest as a member of the Twentieth Century Society, which campaigns to preserve examples of built heritage and modern architecture for future generations. I am not here to debate the merits or demerits of nuclear power—I am sure we will have plenty of debates on that in the months and years to come—but rather to draw the Government’s attention to the fact that as the decommissioning process for nuclear power stations begins, those buildings come to the end of their industrial usage and we have to consider whether we wish to preserve them for future generations.
There might be arguments about whether such buildings should be preserved. Those against nuclear power might wonder why anyone would wish to preserve a nuclear power station, but let me quote Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth, who told The Sunday Times on 19 November 2006:
“We need to be reminded of the huge amounts of money they wasted and the radioactive legacy they left us. We should preserve these buildings as a monument to all that stupidity”.
Equally, those of us who are more positive about nuclear energy and think it still has a role to play might think that we should celebrate and protect examples of our world-leading role in developing civil nuclear power. It is often forgotten that we were at the forefront of developing the use of nuclear power for civil means. Just as Ironbridge and the Pontcysyllte aqueduct are examples of Britain’s greatness in the 17th and 18th centuries, Dounreay, Hinkley Point and Windscale, or Sellafield, are examples of our greatness in the 20th century. We need to retain that sense of heritage and it is vital that we debate what to do with them and understand their heritage value. They certainly have architectural value, but they also have a quite separate heritage value. As English Heritage’s 2006 report on our atomic age made clear:
“Nuclear installations due to their size have also created distinctive late 20th-century landscapes…The power station sites are overshadowed by the large rectangular architectural blocks of the reactor buildings and turbine halls which in turn dominate their usually low-lying coastal locations and often provide focal points in the landscape for many miles around”.
My experience, from living on the coast in Blackpool, is of walking out of my front door and being able to see the rectangular block of Heysham power station shining from 20 or 30 miles away across Morecambe bay. It is a major landmark in the local area. It does not quite compete with Blackpool tower, but it is certainly always on the horizon. We have to realise that in those communities the role of nuclear power has been not just one of environmental concern or energy production, but one of building communities. Places such as Sellafield and Dounreay have been major providers of jobs, and communities have sprung up out of nowhere. Just as many Opposition Members fiercely defend the interests of coalfield communities and the heritage of mining that has gone on for many years, we should not lose sight of the importance of the communities who have contributed to building our nuclear industry.
That is why it is vital to take notice of the current consultation process being carried out by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. In September 2010, it announced its initial intention that
“none of our facilities will be preserved for national heritage”.
On one level that is understandable, as one cannot divorce the heritage component of a nuclear power station for the obvious reason that it has a high degree of radiological risk associated with it. Take, for example, Trawsfynydd power station in north Wales, which was not listed, not because it had no architectural value—far from it, as it was designed by Sir Basil Spence, who designed Coventry cathedral—but because it was sitting on a toxic time bomb and the costs of preserving that toxic time bomb outweighed its architectural value. Conversely, Cadw, the Welsh heritage agency, has at least registered the equally notable garden by Dame Sylvia Crowe and the associated landscaping that surrounded the power station. That shows that we can preserve heritage not just by preserving something that is toxic or radiological but by understanding the wider heritage aspects.
That is why I welcome the fact that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has grudgingly conceded that a national nuclear archive will be established at Dounreay as part of its decommissioning process. I urge both Dounreay and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to consider fully what they mean by nuclear heritage and what they intend to retain in the archive. It must not merely hold photographs of the buildings, but provide an understanding of the lives of the people who built those power stations, made them a success and relied on them for their livelihoods. It is vital that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has a coherent plan to protect them for future generations.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/20.htm