TWO pieces of news this week set me thinking.

The first was the announcement that due to financial problems the proposed nuclear power station at Hinkley, would not now be built by 2022 - the date that the government is obliged to have phased out carbon-producing power stations - with no revised date being given. It would seem the financial world is giving the thumbs down to nuclear power as it is just too expensive, even with the massive subsidies offered by government and paid for by tax payers. Yet our government says it is pressing ahead against all the advice of the financiers.

The second was the news that 7,400 Japanese will be allowed to return to their homes and businesses in Naraha, a town that was evacuated following the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011.

This second item seems like good news - but just give it a moments thought. Naraha is 12 miles from Fukushima.

Chepstow, most of the Forest of Dean and a large part of Bristol lie within 12 miles of the massive new nuclear power station proposed at Oldbury on Severn.

If an accident should happen - and this is quite possible, as the design for the new power station is new and relatively untried and lies on a flood plain - what would happen to your life if you could not go home for four-and-a-half years?

What would your garden look like? Your house? What would happen to your job? What would the roads and hedges and the farms (after all the animals had been slaughtered by soldiers in radioactive protection suits) look like after four-and-a-half years of neglect? What would happen to your business - could it survive not trading for four-and-a-half years?

As for compensation, forget it. Nuclear risks are specifically excluded from all property insurance policies.

My heart goes out to the people of Naraha, returning to desolation. Half of the residents say they will not return, mostly because they are fearful of lingering radiation. We must ensure it cannot happen here, with all the misery, heartache and loss of infrastructure, income and business it will entail.

We must ask our MPs to lobby government not to spend the £25billion on a new nuclear power station at Hinkley and to cancel the one at Oldbury.

We must urge our Government to instead spend the money on safe renewable energy which will bring renewed prosperity to the UK, and not to go ahead with the proposed 83 per cent cut in the solar power tariff just announced, a cut that will effectively bring a halt to solar power development in the UK.

Renewable energy creates many, many times more jobs than nuclear, and will boost local businesses rather than feed the profits of Chinese, French and Japanese companies.

John French, STAND (Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development)

Chepstow