Oldbury reactors close

Safety regulators say they have seen nothing to persuade them that Oldbury nuclear power station is safe to restart - and despite the industry spending more than £2 billion researching the safety of graphite reactor cores, both reactors are due to shut early September.

The Nuclear Safety Newsletter revealed the flaw in Oldbury's ongoing safety case as campaigners discovered that the nuclear industry has ploughed £5 million into research contracts since 2004 to investigate the safety of the material which makes up reactor cores in the UK's ageing fleet of power stations.

News of Oldbury closing is reassuring - it is only 16 miles from Stroud and I have been very concerned over recent years. Oldbury has the worst weight loss of any UK reactor core and an independent nuclear engineer has said this could lead to a catastrophic nuclear-fuel fire and release of radiation.

Now I am not into scaremongering but I have been deeply concerned about how safety is monitored - you can read more on Glos Green party website - and nuclears safety record is not good - just the last weeks we have seen 40% of Sweden's reactors close in an incident that was described as being nearly a Chernobyl by the former site manager - plus the government has just fined two British nuclear operators £2m each over serious radioactive spillages.

This is also crazy as all three organisations are state-owned: this merely sends £4m of taxpayers' money on a financial merry-go-round.

Oldbury's shut-down date is December 2008. Why waste any more millions on propping up this 38 year-old dinosaur - on grounds of safety it should close now. And as for new nuclear what happens in the event of serious problems, financial or otherwise? A taxpayers 'rescue' or letting the lights going out? Nuclear eats money: cheaper, safer, cleaner Green answers exist now. We must insist on them. Read more re planned closures.