Don't privatise Berkeley Station says Green Party Spokesman (From Gazette Series)

Don't privatise Berkeley Station says Green Party Spokesman

PRIVATISING nuclear power stations such as Berkeley could have disastrous implications for safety, Green Party activists warned this week.

Speculation has been mounting that the Government will give the go ahead for the sale of British Nuclear Group which operates the Berkeley atom plant.

Reports say that Government-owned British Nuclear Fuels has already tabled proposals for the sale of its operating arm which handles nuclear generation, reprocessing and waste clean-up.

Anti-nuclear campaigners have suggested that potential bidders could include giant US multinational corporations such as Halliburton and Fluor.

Gloucestershire Green Party spokesman Martin Whiteside said it would be folly to put a "dangerously unstable" industry into the hands of notorious cost cutters.

"Blair and Brown may need to raise cash and cut spending, but we can only sell infrastructure once," he said. "To introduce such commercial considerations into the running of nuclear power plants will only escalate problems.

"North Sea oil and gas are running down. It is crazy to transfer key operations out of state hands when we are facing an energy shortfall.

"Do we really want this industry controlled from another country by companies with short term profit horizons."

Trade secretary Alan Johnson denied recently that a sell-off decision had been made.

And a BNFL spokesman said: "No decision on a sale will be taken without the Secretary of State, the trade unions, customers and other stakeholders being properly consulted."

The nuclear industry union Prospect is seeking guarantees that the profit motives would never be allowed to affect safety or security standards.