False Nuclear Narrative on Safety Rules - Somerset Wildlife

Severn Estuary Interests Group responds to Nuclear Review (Fingleton

Report) challenging misleading environmental narrative. The report and
surrounding reporting and commentary perpetuates the damaging government
narrative that environmental protections are preventing development. The
Severn Estuary Interests Group, a collaboration of organisations that
prioritise the health and resilience of the estuary for nature and people,
is able to say based on decades of experience, that the environmental rules
and regulations are not the reason EDF have found themselves spending an
alleged £700m on fish protection measures. The Fingleton Report and
subsequent reporting has failed to acknowledge some important points with
regard to the building of Hinkley Point C: The real issue here is the
developer’s approach, not the environmental regulations that function to
protect nature. EDF devised the mitigation measures themselves, rejecting
offers of collaboration from local experts. This, as with the notorious HS2
bat-tunnel debacle – has inflated costs precisely because expert ecological
advice was not incorporated early enough. The continuing narrative that
environmental safeguards are the “blocker”, or that only “a few
individual animals” benefit from mitigation or compensation, is a
deliberate and politically convenient distortion of the evidence.

 Somerset Wildlife Trust 5th Dec 2025 

 https://www.somersetwildlife.org/news/severn-estuary-interests-group-responds-nuclear-review-fingleton-report-challenging-misleading