“The Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP) new local industry strategy featured prominently at its annual conference in Torquay on 4 November despite it not yet having been published.
It has been signed off by all the partners and seen by other stakeholders, but will remain otherwise unseen until it receives ministerial-level clearance in Whitehall. …”
And this picture of how our LEP compares to the 38 other LEPs is worth (at least) a thousand words:
So, so nany of Devon’s economic eggs in Hinkley C’s basket – dropped in there by our Local Enterprise Partnership, with the vested interests of its board members uppermost.
And no wonder Germany has dropped nuclear in favour of renewable energy.
“An official report rapped French energy giant EDF on the knuckles Monday for lacking a “culture of quality,” as reflected in huge delays and price overruns at a nuclear plant it has been building for more than a decade.
The report was presented to EDF’s largest shareholder, the French government, which called for an urgent “plan of action” to improve standards at the company and get the much-needed plant online.
The delays at the Flamanville site in northern France come on top of a massive cost overrun at the Hinkley Point nuclear project EDF is building in Britain and a decade-long delay to the Olkiluoto plant in Finland.
EDF’s European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) reactor in Flamanville is now seven years late and costs have more than tripled to 12.4 billion euros ($13.7 billion).
Earlier this month, the company said fixing faulty welding on the Flamanville reactor will add 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) to the already swollen price tag.
When Electricite de France began work on the reactor in 2007 it targeted a launch date of 2012. It is now eyeing 2022.
Presented by Jean-Martin Folz, ex-boss of car-maker PSA, Monday’s audit report highlighted a loss of competence at EDF and slammed the company for lacking a “culture of quality.”
Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said the report underscored “an unacceptable lack of rigour” at EDF.
He ordered the company to put in place an action plan within a month to bring its nuclear project to the “highest levels”.
EDF chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy, at the same press conference, said he accepted the findings and vowed the company would “redouble its efforts” to boost skill levels.
Folz said that in spite of the problems, the EPR project has successfully demonstrated the “relevance” of the new technology.
– Frustration –
The EDF’s board a few months ago discussed abandoning the Flamanville project but the French state still supports the build despite frustration with the delays.
The project was meant to showcase the third-generation EPR reactor technology that EDF has sold to Britain and Finland.
In September, EDF announced that an EPR reactor it is building on Britain’s south coast would also be delayed, and cost between 1.9 and 2.9 billion pounds ($2.4-3.7 billion) more than initially estimated.
A similar EPR third generation nuclear power plant project in Olkiluoto in Finland is now 10 years behind the initial schedule.
The government acknowledges the delays risk severely denting France’s international reputation as a reliable provider of nuclear energy technology.
Folz said EDF would need to embark on a massive investment and recruitment drive, which was only possible if the government commits to “stable, long-term programmes for the construction of new reactors and the maintenance of the existing fleet.”
The state is considering building more reactors but Environment Minister Elisabeth Borne insisted Monday a decision cannot be taken before EDF has demonstrated the effective running of the EPR.
France relies on nuclear power for 72 percent of its electricity needs. The government wants to reduce this to 50 percent by 2035 by developing more renewable energy sources.
The government has said it would shut 14 of 58 reactors, spread across 19 power plants, by 2035.
But France, by far the country most reliant on nuclear energy, has no intention of phasing this source out altogether, like Germany.
The nuclear sector provides jobs for nearly a quarter of a million people.
Two reactors in Fassenheim in the east of the country are still online despite a 40-year lifespan that expired two years ago.
Last year, a parliamentary report highlighted failings in the safety and defences of the country’s nuclear plants, citing a series of shutdowns at sites around the country.”
https://www.france24.com/en/20191028-audit-raps-french-energy-giant-edf-over-nuclear-project
Comment as post:
“This positive change has long been requested by East Devon Alliance DCC Councillor Martin Shaw (Colyton and Seaton). See …
On 13 October I made a comment on the Heart of the South West (HotSW) Joint Scrutiny Committee meeting scheduled for the 17 October. I pointed out that attendance at this essential exercise in democracy had steadily fallen through the year from eleven to just five councillors [correction, should read six] and added my opinion that this scrutiny committee has all the appearance of being in crisis.
Sadly this view seems to have been confirmed from the October 17 meeting.
From the minutes and associated documents of this Joint Scrutiny meeting of 17 October attendance is recorded as follows, down again to a bare quorum of five:
(https://democracy.devon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=3572&x=1)
Present:
Councillor Jerry Brook Devon County Council (Chair)
Councillor Richard Hosking Devon County Council
Councillor Julian Brazil Devon County Council
Councillor Gareth Derrick Plymouth City Council
Councillor Barrie Spencer South Hams District Council
Apologies:
Councillor Ray Bloxham Devon County Council
Councillor Mike Lewis Somerset County Council
Councillor Jonny Morris Plymouth City Council
Absent:
Councillor Rod Williams Somerset County Council (Vice-Chair)
Councillor Ann Brown Somerset County Council
Councillor Simon Coles Somerset County Council
Councillor Lee Howgate Torbay Council
Councillor Karen Kennedy Torbay Council
Councillor Norman Cavill Taunton Deane Borough Council
Councillor Richard Chesterton Mid Devon District Council
Councillor Ian Dyer Sedgemoor District Council
[Only 16 councillors are listed though the Terms of Reference of the Scrutiny Committee sets the number at 17 – see Appendix 1 of the October briefing pack]
Three of these attendees: Councillors, Hoskins, Brazil and Derrick were also among the six attending the previous meeting in June. These Councillors deserve credit for taking their scrutiny responsibility seriously where the majority clearly have not. Note that not a single Councillor from Somerset attended. This is democratic deficit writ large.
As reported by Owl, the meeting did agreed that future meetings be webcast to continue to increase transparency of the Committee; and that public participation be adopted at future Committee meetings in line with Devon County Council’s public participation scheme. This is something that should have been included at the beginning but nevertheless represents progress.
In my comment I conjectured a number of reasons why members might find attendance to be a waste of their time and, mischievously, raised the rhetorical question as to whether HoTSW might be using creative administrative devises to make scrutiny difficult or seem unimportant. So it is interesting to read, from the minutes that among the topics discussed were the following:
1. the challenge of actively scrutinising the LEP when funds had already been allocated and projects begun;
2. the need for Scrutiny to have sight of policies before they are agreed and implemented by the LEP, to add value and effectiveness to the governance process;
3. the requirement of the Committee to scrutinise strategic documents and the cost effectiveness of the LEP.
These are excellent questions which would certainly have benefitted from members of the public being able to follow the details through webcasting. We now need to know the HotSW’s response.”
This positive change has long been requested by East Devon Alliance DCC Councillor Martin Shaw (Colyton and Seaton).
See minutes below for a full account of discussion at the meeting – about what is working well and (more importantly and interestingly) what is not:
https://democracy.devon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=3572&x=1
Owl says: Has anyone seen policies to reverse this trend from our Local Enterprise Partnership? Or even from EDDC? Or DCC?
Hint: development in Exmouth is the “traditional” kind the article points out as leading to problems.
“Seaside towns and cities dominate the list of areas with the highest numbers of people getting into serious difficulties with debt, according to new figures.
Scarborough, the largest resort on the Yorkshire coast, ranked second out of 347 local authorities in England and Wales for personal insolvencies, while Torbay in Devon – which includes the town of Torquay – came third, said the accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young.
Plymouth, on the south coast of Devon, was ranked fourth, while Blackpool was in sixth place.
However, it was the city of Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands which had the highest rate of personal insolvencies, recording just over 51 per 10,000 adults in 2018. The national average was 25, said the firm.
The insolvency rate includes personal bankruptcies, debt relief orders and individual voluntary arrangements….
Other coastal locations or regions featured in the firm’s “top 20” included Weymouth and Portland in Dorset, which includes the resort of Weymouth, which was in 12th place (39.6 insolvencies per 10,000 adults); the Isle of Wight, in 13th place (39.3 per 10,000); Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, in 14th place (39.2 per 10,000); Cornwall, in 17th place (38.5 per 10,000); and Hastings in East Sussex, in 19th place (38 per 10,000).
The accountancy firm said many coastal towns outside south-east England had struggled to replace their traditional industries with faster growth sectors such as financial services and technology. …”
Comment as post:
“Heart of the South West (HotSW) Joint Scrutiny Committee
meets on
Thursday October 17
at County Hall 2.15 pm
(public may attend but not speak) to consider, amongst other things, a review of its own scrutiny performance and how it could be improved. This Joint Scrutiny Committee is the nearest thing we have to democratic oversight of our Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), HoTSW. Judge how good it is for yourselves. The Joint Committee comprises 17 councillors drawn from just nine of the 17 odd Devon and Somerset local and unitary authorities. Political proportionality only applies to the four nominees from each of the two County Councils.
FIRST A RECAP & SOME SCENE SETTING.
In 2010 the government started approving bids from self-selecting, business led, Local Enterprise Partnerships. LEPs were encouraged to make ambitious plans to run their local economies and bid for central government growth development funds, effectively kick starting English Devolution. HotSW is the selected LEP covering Devon and Somerset. By 2014 HotSW had agreed, in secret and with no scrutiny, a growth strategy with government. Nothing was openly published until 2015. This growth strategy is built around doubling the local economy in 20 years (3.53% annual growth rate) by increasing productivity and population growth. The targets are wildly unrealistic and therefore undeliverable.
This government devolution experiment has come in for severe criticism from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) (e.g. 2016): “It is alarming that LEPs are not meeting basic standards of governance and transparency, such as disclosing conflicts of interest to the public….LEPs are led by the private sector, and stakeholders have raised concerns that they are dominated by vested interests that do not properly represent their business communities.”
As a result, the Department for Communities and Local Government commissioned a “Review of Local Enterprise Partnership Governance and Transparency”, Led by Mary Ney. This review made 17 recommendations (2017) to improve governance, accountability and scrutiny of LEPs. Although the Department accepted these recommendations, they adopted a “light touch” approach, leaving LEPs and Local Authorities to work out the details for themselves.
Not surprisingly the PAC concluded this year (June 2019):
“We welcome the improvements to LEP governance and transparency since we last examined these issues, but there is still a long way to go for all LEPs to reach the rigorous standards we expect. We remain concerned that LEP boards are not yet representative of their local areas and business communities and that local scrutiny and accountability arrangements are not strong enough considering the significant sums of public funding that LEPs manage.”
NOW TO THE HOTSW SCRUTINY REVIEW ITSELF.
First thing to note is that of the 17 members of this Joint Scrutiny Committee, only eleven attended the very first scrutiny meeting last November. This attendance dropped to ten in February and then to just five in June, with Devon County Councillor R Bloxham for Broadsclyst, being amongst the absentees. This is the bare minimum for a quorum. This scrutiny committee has all the appearance of being in crisis. Perhaps members feel out of their depth scrutinising regional economic issues? Perhaps members feel inhibited from diving deep where all past HoTSW decisions have been rubber stamped? Maybe they have been warned not to undermine the LEP for fear of losing central funds? Could HotSW be confusing them with detail (oldest administrative trick in the book)? There is a plea for shorter presentations up for discussion.
Scrutiny Committee Members have canvassed views from other County and Unitary Authorities to try to understand their Scrutiny arrangements for LEPs, and have concluded that the HotSW arrangements are “more developed than in many authorities”. “Current arrangements are having some impact but have further to go.” A report proposes some changes to strengthen the transparency and quality of scrutiny (e.g. to adopt the Devon County practice for public participation, web casting, public attendance and speaking) and minor tinkering with the Terms of Reference to allow them to be more pro-active.
For discussion is this list of how to judge their Scrutiny success over the next year, with only three meetings to do it in:
1. Positive and impactful relationship between Scrutiny and the LEP, evidenced by change or amendments to policy or decisions.
2. Being cited in advance of priorities, decisions and strategy arising for the LEP
3. Clarity on the Chair of the Board and LEP’s ambitions and how Scrutiny can add value particularly to investment strategy.
4. Representing the ambition and concerns of the South-West’s residents
5. Demonstrable contribution to productivity and growth by the LEP
6. Increasing democracy in regional government
7. Scrutiny to build a culture of learning and improvement, taking account of best practice nationally
THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF THINGS TO SCRUTINISE.
At the February 2019 meeting the annual HotSW performance review, commissioned from Ash Futures, was presented to this Scrutiny Committee. It gave an early view of progress already faltering.
“…….the review of economic data leads to the overall conclusion that the HoSW economy, at best, continues to track the ‘baseline’ growth scenario. That is, there is no firm evidence that it is achieving either ‘strong’ or ‘transformational’ growth as aspired to in the Strategic Economic Plan.” [Baseline – continuing to fall behind UK average].
“The plan outcome measures and objectives in the current economic environment do not currently look achievable, certainly in the short-term. …..It is our view that some of the outcome targets, particularly those associated with the ‘transformational’ target, now look very aspirational in their nature.”
“Currently, there is no ‘feedback loop’ back to the Strategic Investment Panel to develop its understanding of ‘what has worked well, and what not’ with investments made….. A better understanding of how investments have developed would lead to better long-term decision-making.”
Following that, the LEPs covering Cornwall, Devon and Somerset had an opportunity to submit evidence at the beginning of August to the Treasury Committee Inquiry into regional imbalances in the UK economy:
The preface to the evidence reads: “We have put forward two submissions; one on behalf of Cornwall Council and Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership and another on behalf of the Heart of the South West Joint Committee and the HotSW Local Enterprise Partnership representing Devon, Plymouth, Somerset and Torbay.”
“We are submitting this joint letter as being neighbouring areas we have similar policy asks which the committee might find helpful to have highlighted as well as the nuances that are described in our two responses. There is no clear definition of what constitutes a region and we believe these two documents provide detailed insight into the complexity of this subject.”
Cornwall then followed this introduction with a detailed response for their part of the region comprising 4,342 words and four graphs but the detailed HotSW response was left blank. My understanding is that Local Authorities decided/were instructed to feed inputs to HotSW, stand back and let HotSW take the lead. Unfortunately, any County inputs have got “lost in the post” and the only organisation that took the time, trouble and effort to answer questions raised in the Inquiry terms of reference from the perspective of Devon’s economy was the East Devon Alliance.
WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
Philip Aldrick, economics editor The Times, summarised why the Treasury will become more interested in regional funding in an article he wrote in 2018:
“….One theory doing the rounds is that the Treasury wants to know if its business support schemes are working. A crunch is coming. England’s 39 local enterprise partnerships [now reduced to 38- one went rogue], designed to boost growth, are funded largely with EU grants. For 2014 to 2020, they secured €6.51 billion of European Structural and Investment funds. Of that, €2.5 billion was allocated to “enhancing the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises”, about a tenth of which went to less developed regions.”
“After Brexit, now formally delayed until 2021 after yesterday’s transition deal, the money will no longer make the round trip via Brussels. It will come directly from Westminster, bringing with it more political accountability. If the money is not driving productivity, which it patently isn’t, the Treasury may decide the financial medicine could be administered more effectively.”
And the PAC in the 2019 report (referred to above) picks up the same theme:
“Despite spending up to £12 billion of taxpayers’ money [between 2015/16 and 2020/21], the Department has no real understanding of the impact which the Local Growth Fund has had on local economic growth. The Department chose not to set quantifiable objectives for Growth Deals. Its assertion that every £1 of local growth funding could generate £4.81 in benefits is an unsubstantiated estimate. Despite receiving quarterly performance data from LEPs, the Department has not used this to build up an understanding of the impact that local growth funding has had nationally, nor has it measured what value for money LEPs have delivered so far.”
Spending vast sums of tax payers’ money without strong scrutiny and without demonstrable value for money isn’t going to continue. Treasury watchers will be familiar with their scepticism over future plans that lack realism. Ambition not only has to be deliverable but be seen to be delivered.”
Highlights:
The Heart of the South West devolution bid highlights a number of challenges facing the LEP area which planning has a key role in addressing. These are:
Comparative productivity is 29th out of 39 LEP areas
An aging workforce and major skills shortages reported
Our performance remains low on key productivity measures: wages, innovation, inward investment exports and global trade
Disproportionate growth in our older population is placing unsustainable burdens on our services
Strategic infrastructure has good coverage, but is incomplete
Insufficient capacity of the road network and motorway junctions
Uncompetitive travel times to London and the south east
Incidents and extreme weather threatens transport resilience
Housing supply not keeping up with demand
Threats to National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Page 5: revised timetable pushes back a GESP agreement to not earlier than April 2022. HOWEVER, this is almost certainly a spelling error, as on page 11 this is contradicted:
Once adopted it will supersede specified strategic parts of the East Devon Local Plan, Exeter Core Strategy, Exeter Local Plan, Mid Devon Local Plan (once adopted), Teignbridge Local Plan Parts 1 and 2 and any other Development Plan Documents as necessary. The preparation timetable is as follows:
Site Options and Draft Policies – June 2020
Draft Plan – November 2020
Publication (Proposed Submission) – February 2022
Submission – July 2022
Examination – September 2022
Adpotion : April 2023
(not April 2022)
Page 8: The Greater Exeter Strategic Plan will cover the local planning authority areas of East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon and Teignbridge (i.e. those Councils’ administrative areas excluding Dartmoor National Park). It will be prepared jointly by those four local planning authorities with the support of Devon County Council under Section 28 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act. It will:
• set an overall vision and strategy for the area in the context of national and other high level policy and in particular climate emergency declarations and the NPPF;
• contain policies and proposals for strategic and cross boundary issues where these are best dealt with at a larger-than-local scale;
• set the overall amount of growth for the period 2020 – 2040;
• promote the Liveable Exeter vision by allocating urban regeneration sites in the city;
• implement the overall vision and strategy by allocating strategic sites of 500 or more
homes which may include urban extensions and new settlements ;
• provide districts’ local plans with targets for non-strategic development
“A No Deal scenario, without a comprehensive and cross-Government mitigation plan in place, could create conditions that have not been seen in our rural communities since Foot and Mouth.
A letter from the Heart of the South West Joint Committee and the Heart of the South West LEP, sent to Michael Gove, the No Deal Brexit minister, says that without comprehensive mitigation in place, a No Deal Brexit could result in significant business closures and a fundamental impact on Devon and Somerset.
The Heart of the South West Joint Committee and the Heart of the South West LEP are a partnership of sixteen local authorities, two national parks, two CCGs and the LEP and represent 1.7m people and 80,000 businesses across Devon and Somerset.”
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/no-deal-brexit-as-bad-3393648
“President Macron’s economy minister has accused the French state-owned company building Britain’s new nuclear plant of “unacceptable” failings as he threatened sweeping change at the group.
Bruno Le Maire said yesterday that the French nuclear sector was like “a state within a state” and he denounced cost overruns and delays in the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor in Somerset and similar projects in Flamanville in Normandy and Olkiluoto in Finland. “We will not accept this drift month after month, year after year,” Mr Le Maire said.
His words appeared to weaken the position of Jean-Bernard Lévy, 64, who was given a second four-year term as chief executive of EDF by Mr Macron in February.
Mr Le Maire said that he had ordered an independent audit into the French nuclear industry, which provides about 75 per cent of nation’s electricity, and into the decision to build a new generation of the increasingly questioned European pressurised reactors in Britain, France, Finland and China. The conclusions will be delivered on October 31, he said.
The audit will interest Whitehall, given that the EPRs being built in Somerset are supposed to supply 7 per cent of Britain’s electricity. EDF said last week that Hinkley Point C would cost £3 billion more than expected and may not meet its latest launch date of 2025, which is already eight years late.
The glitches at Hinkley Point C come after setbacks at Flamanville, which initially was due to come on stream in 2012 at a cost of €3.3 billion, but which will not now be linked to the grid until 2022 at the earliest at a cost of at least $10.9 billion. The Finnish plant was scheduled to be operational in 2009, but is still not complete.
Noting the lastest delays at Flamanville, Mr Le Maire said: “Now we learn that the costs of the nuclear reactor in Britain have drifted. All this drifting is unacceptable.”
The French state owns 83.7 per cent of EDF. Mr Macron wants to split the group in two, placing its nuclear activities in a wholly state-owned unit and floating the rest.”
Source: Times (pay wall)
Note to our Local Enterprise Partnership:
1. Don’t whatever you do go for a day at the races and bet any money – your track record advises against it.
2. You have (and always have had) developers on your Board. Surely one of you could have tipped off EDF about “challenging ground conditions”!
“The British project cost hike also comes just days after the country saw an auction for offshore wind projects clear at a record low, raising questions of the cost competitiveness of new nuclear.
EDF said Hinkley Point C was estimated to cost 21.5-22.5 billion pounds ($26.8-$28 billion), up 1.9-2.9 billion pounds from its latest estimate. …
Crooks said the cost increase was related to challenging ground conditions at the site. …”
This writer in The Times thinks not! Is our LEP fit for purpose if it goes along with EDF with no scrutiny?
“EDF, the French electricity company, has insisted that its nuclear reactors are safe, despite admitting that six contained components that fail to meet industry standards.
EDF, which is leading the project to build Britain’s new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, also conceded that sub-standard parts had been found in a new-generation reactor under construction in Normandy.
The reactor, at Flamanville, which is of the same kind as those planned for Hinkley Point, has been beset by flaws and cost-overruns and will not open until 2022 at the earliest, a decade behind its initial schedule. EDF declined to say whether the latest problem would delay the launch still further.
The company revealed last week that some welds on steam generators made in a factory in Saint-Marcel in central France had been found to suffer from a “a deviation from technical standards governing the manufacture of nuclear-reactor components”. In a statement yesterday, it said that sixteen of the affected generators had been installed in six reactors — two at Blayais near Bordeaux and in others at Dampierre-en-Burly and Bugey in central France, Fessenheim in eastern France and Paluel in the north of the country.
Régis Clement, deputy head of EDF’s nuclear fleet, said: “None of this parts present a risk in terms . . . of the safety of the reactors. We are confident,” he said. EDF said in a statement that “no immediate action” was necessary, although the final decision on whether to shut down reactors for repairs lies with the Nuclear Safety Authority. The watchdog has a track record of demanding repairs that EDF deems unnecessary.
EDF added that sub-standard welds also had been found on four of the steam generators installed in the reactor in Flamanville, along with three steam generators earmarked for a new plant at Gravelines, near Dunkirk. All the steam generators were made in the Saint-Marcel factory, which is owned by Framatome, controlled by EDF.
This is not the first time that welds at Flamanville have been called into question. This summer, the watchdog ordered EDF to mend eight separate welds found to have faults before the plant could come into service.”
Source: Times (pay wall)
Hinkley C nuclear plant is where the vast majority og our regional funds have been placed by our Local Enterprise Partnership – many of whose board members have a direct or indirect financial interest in the project.
“The French state electricity group building Britain’s new nuclear plant suffered another setback yesterday when it admitted to possible faults with components used in reactors in France.
The disclosure alarmed investors, raised a new question mark over the French nuclear industry and will fuel speculation that slipshod practices have gained hold in a sector that supplies about three quarters of the country’s electricity.
EDF said that a factory that made steam generators used in nuclear reactors had failed to follow standard procedures. The problem was with the welds on the generators, it said.
The factory is in Saint-Marcel, central France, and is owned by Framatome, a French nuclear group in which EDF has a majority stake. The plant supplies heavy equipment for the French nuclear industry and has provided components for 106 reactors worldwide.
EDF said that Framatome had informed it of “a deviation from technical standards governing the manufacture of nuclear reactor components”. It said that the problem concerned components already installed in reactors, as well as those being prepared for future use. A spokesman for the French Nuclear Safety Authority said that about 20 functioning reactors built after 2008 were believed to be affected.
“EDF, along with Framatome, has been conducting in-depth investigations to identify all affected components and reactors, as well as to ascertain their fitness for service,” EDF said.
The setback comes after a factory in nearby Le Creusot, which belonged to Areva and is now part of Framatome, admitted to having failed to follow safety test procedures during the manufacture of nuclear components. The Nuclear Safety Authority said that test results appeared to have been falsified and added that it had alerted prosecutors to possible fraud.
The latest scandal could hardly have come at a worse time for EDF, which said this summer that the launch of its new-generation nuclear reactor had suffered a further delay. The reactor in Flamanville, Normandy, will now come on stream in 2022, a decade after it was meant to be operating.
EDF is leading the project to build two similar reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset at a cost of £19.6 billion. They are due to come on stream in 2025.
With difficulties mounting for EDF, its share price fell sharply on the Paris stock market, and closed down 74 cents, or 6.8 per cent, at €10.12.”
Source: Times (paywall)
Comment added also as post by Owl – who is also confused.
“It’s all very confusing (especially sorting out your NUTS 1,2&3).
The joint covering letter from the two LEPs (one of which appears to have its own joint committee just to confuse things further) says:
“We have put forward two submissions; one on behalf of Cornwall Council and Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership and another on behalf of the Heart of the South West Joint Committee and the HotSW Local Enterprise Partnership representing Devon, Plymouth, Somerset and Torbay.”
They also go on to say:
“We are submitting this joint letter as being neighbouring areas we have similar policy asks which the committee might find helpful to have highlighted as well as the nuances that are described in our two responses. There is no clear definition of what constitutes a region and we believe these two documents provide detailed insight into the complexity of this subject.”
So Cornwall (and the Scilly Isles) gets the joint forward plus a detailed response under the heading:
“Written evidence submitted by Cornwall Council and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership, 2nd August 2019″ [4,342 words and four graphs – a lot of nuance and explanation of complexity particular to Cornwall in here. Good for them.]
The Heart of the South West joint letter is followed by…………….NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Couldn’t be bothered or just forgot to add it? Sadly, either way, the people of Devon and Somerset have lost out.”
East Devon Alliance submitted evidence to Treasury inquiry into regional growth: this wax pertinent, spwell-reasoned evidence. It was the ONLY submission solely on behalf of Devon:
Cornwall and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly evidence (to which our Devon and Somerset LEP added its name only to a generic one-page “Joint Statement” covering letter) was skewed (as it should be) ONLY towards Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and Plymouth – concentrating on them being in the same EU region (NUTS2), and therefore not concerning itself with any other part of Devon:
Our LEP simply duplicated the generic one-page covering letter in the above Cornwall submission as its only contribution for itself:
South-west growth 0.25% since referendum, slowest of all regions since the referendum in 2016. Hello, Local Enterprise Partnership – HELLO! Any response? Any new figures? Any new ideas?
“London’s financial services sector has been in recession since the third quarter of 2017, regional GDP figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed.
In the 18 months to the end of last year the capital’s banking and asset management industry shrank 11 per cent. The ONS did not explain the slump but it is likely to be related to Brexit as banks and insurers downsized British operations and directed new investment overseas.
The regional GDP figures, which cover England and Wales, revealed that the South West, which voted to leave the EU, has been the slowest growing English region since the 2016 referendum. It grew 0.25 per cent between the second quarter of 2016 and the end of last year.
The figures, which start in the second quarter of 2012 and run to the final quarter of last year, show that London has grown the fastest, expanding 21 per cent, while the North East and South West have been slowest, at 5.5 per cent and 7 per cent respectively.
London’s success has been despite the downturn in the square mile. Financial services contributed £132 billion to GDP last year, 6.9 per cent of total output, with half of that from the capital. Of the industry’s 1.1 million jobs, 400,000 were in London last year, analysis by the House of Commons library showed. …”
Presented to, and published by, the Treasury Committee on Regional Imbalances in the UK Economy Inquiry.
A top-notch forensic dissection of unattainable growth figures, plucked out of thin air by our Local Enterprise Partnership, and accommodated by our county and district councils without scrutiny:
… and, so, far, not a peep out of our Local Enterprise Partnership – who put pretty much all our local eggs in that same government basket …
Wonder what (if anything) Johnson thinks of that?
Today’s Times (pay wall)
“As French existential jokes go, little beats building a nuclear power plant at a place called Flammable. OK, it’s actually Flamanville. But who cares about that sort of nicety — not least when the project’s proving so incendiary?
It was due to be up and running in 2012 at a cost of €3.3 billion. Not only that. Flaming Ville was to be the showcase for the European Pressurised Reactor, the wizzy new tech developed by the state-backed EDF. True, it’s living up to the pressurised bit, at least for EDF boss Jean-Bernard Lévy. He’s just been forced to announce another delay: a howitzer, even by usual standards, of “more than three years”. The end of 2022 is now the earliest start date; a delay bound to jack up project costs that have already exploded to €10.9 billion
The reason? France’s spoilsport nuclear safety authority has ordered EDF to repair eight bits of dodgy welding: who’d have thought nukes had to be welded together properly? And, yes, the whole thing is turning into a nice French farce. Except for one thing, of course: the joke’s on us.”
AND (in more detail):
The latest delay at Flamanville comes after the French Nuclear Safety Authority ordered EDF to repair eight faulty welds at the plant.
Jean-Bernard Lévy, 64, EDF’s chief executive, said: “The time that we will need to prepare the repairs, carry out the repairs, test the repairs and get everything checked and then have the whole plant tested again and prepared to be launched, that will lead to delays of more than three years. So I don’t think it’s possible to commission it before the end of 2022.”
The European Pressurised Reactor at Flamanville was initially due to come on stream in 2012 at a cost of €3.3 billion. In its most recent estimate, EDF said that the costs had risen to €10.9 billion. The latest delay means that this will almost certainly have to be revised upwards.
Critics want EDF to take the reactor off the market, given the difficulties at Flamanville and elsewhere. Plans to build one in Finland are also running more than ten years behind schedule.
Engineers started working on the model in the early 1990s but only one — in China — has so far been switched on.
EDF reported first-half earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of €8.3 billion, up 3.5 per cent from a year earlier. Revenue rose by 4.3 per cent to €36.47 billion.
The French government plans to split EDF into two units under a state-owned parent company. EDF Bleu will hold the nuclear assets and be wholly owned by the state and EDF Vert will concentrate on renewable energy and services, with a minority stake in private hands.
The defective welds responsible for the latest setback at Flamanville were detected last year. EDF said that it would repair most of them but argued that those in the building enclosing the reactor could be left for now. Those are difficult to access and to repair.
EDF said that it was “highly improbable” that they would break and urged nuclear inspectors to allow the construction programme to go ahead without repairing them but the watchdog insisted that they should be fixed before the reactor was started up.
EDF said it would agree with the watchdog how to repair the welds.
“Further delay for Hinkley-style reactor raises pressure on EDF”
“The company building Britain’s new nuclear reactors has announced a further delay to its troubled high-profile project in France.
EDF, the French state-owned group, said that the launch of its nuclear reactor at Flamanville in Normandy had been put back three years until the end of 2022.
The group is leading the project to build two similar reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset at a cost of £19.68 billion.
It’s OK – our Local Enterprise Partnership (for whom it is their flagship project) will just pump more of our Devon and Somerset funds into it. After all, after many if them were chosen for their nuclear business connect, they at least will be amongst the few who prosper.
“Energy consumers and taxpayers could have to pay for cost overruns at new nuclear plants after the government backed a funding model proposed by EDF.
The business department said last night it believed the “regulated asset base” model that the French energy giant wants for its proposed Sizewell plant in Suffolk could reduce consumer bills compared with the subsidy contract used to back the £20 billion Hinkley Point plant EDF is building in Somerset.
A consultation document published last night confirms that consumers would, however, be asked to start paying for the plants on energy bills while they were still under construction and to share in the risks of cost overruns.
In the case of an extreme overrun, the government — effectively the taxpayer — could either have to step in and pay the extra cost or scrap the project and pay compensation to investors.
Nuclear power provides about a fifth of the UK’s electricity needs but all bar one existing plant is due to close by 2030. Hinkley Point is the only new project under construction and over the past year developers have abandoned plans for new plants in Cumbria, Anglesey and Gloucestershire amid difficulties securing financing.
Under the regulated asset base model, the developer would receive a regulated price to give it a return on its investment expenditure, including during the construction period, and this would be levied on energy bills.
By contrast, EDF and its Chinese partners CGN are paying upfront to build Hinkley in return for a guarantee that consumers will pay them a fixed price for electricity when it eventually starts generating. The contract, well above current market prices, was widely criticised as poor value for money.
The government said the subsidy contract had been “appropriate” for Hinkley because at the time it was awarded, the reactor technology “was not operational anywhere in the world” and similar projects had suffered from significant delays and cost overruns.
The government said that construction at Hinkley, due to start operating in 2025, was on schedule and the same design of reactor had started up in China. It said that financial investors remained unwilling to put money in “during the construction phase”.
Source:Times (pay wall)
Does our Local Enterprise Partnership – which could but does not invest in coastal regeneration – care? Not one jot.
“Analysis by BBC News of population projections has found seaside towns in northern England could see the biggest decline in under-30s.
The Parliamentary Group for Coastal Communities said funding cuts meant seaside towns were “being left behind”.
The government said it had invested more than £200m in coastal communities.
The coastline in England is home to some of the most beautiful but also poorest places in England. …
BBC News has analysed the population projections made by the ONS for 75 local authorities in England with a coastline.
More than half of the local authorities could see a fall in the number of residents under the age of 30 by the year 2039.
The biggest decline in the number of under-30s could be in the north of England, where every local authority with a coastline, except Liverpool, might see a fall in the number of young people.
Collectively northern seaside communities might see a reduction of 200,000 under-30s over the next two decades.
In contrast, coastal authorities in the south, such as Bristol (+13%), Canterbury (+6.4%) and Southampton (+4.7%) could see substantial rises in the number of young people …”
“It has been described as a giant plughole under the sea, sucking in 130,000 litres of water a second along with vast numbers of fish.
The twin inlet tunnels stretching two miles out into the Severn estuary are so big that a double-decker bus could drive through them. The system will cool a new nuclear power station being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset but conservation groups say it will kill up to 250,000 fish a day and must be altered or scrapped.
They say that EDF, the French state-owned energy group, has grossly underestimated the system’s impact on marine life in the estuary, a special conservation area.
A 5mm mesh will be installed to prevent larger fish being swallowed but the groups, including the Blue Marine Foundation, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and Somerset Wildlife Trust, say many fish will be fatally injured when pressed against it. Small fish, eels and the fry of many species, such as salmon, whiting and cod, will be sucked through the mesh and into the cooling system. The groups say it could damage the population of twaite shad in the UK, a small herring-like fish that used to spawn in the estuary by the millions but has dwindled to tens of thousands.
EDF says the system will kill about 650,000 fish a year. It has asked to vary its original permits and planning permission for the power station to allow it to remove an “acoustic fish deterrent” from the cooling system. It argues that, even without it, the impact of the system on fish populations will still be “negligible”. EDF says fish will be adequately protected by other measures, one which will slow the water entering the system and another which will return to the sea the fish sucked in.
Conservation groups argue that scientific analysis they obtained of the cooling system shows far greater harm to marine life. This analysis is partly based on measurements of fish swallowed by the cooling system of Hinkley Point B, a nearby nuclear power station which consumes a quarter of the sea water that will be extracted to cool Hinkley C. They want the government to reject EDF’s application and, if the company cannot mitigate the damage, force it to use other ways to cool the station, such as cooling towers or ponds.
James Robinson, of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, said: “The authorities must decide if it’s worth building a giant plughole to suck millions of sea animals to their deaths, in one of our most important protected marine areas, in order to produce electricity.”
Charles Clover, director of Blue Marine Foundation, said the groups would also challenge plans by EDF for a similar system at its proposed new nuclear power station at Sizewell in Suffolk.
Michele Bowe, Somerset Wildlife Trust director of conservation, said: “It is of grave concern that EDF is seeking to cancel one third of the measures originally imposed to protect fish numbers when construction work of the tunnel systems is well under way.”
Chris Fayers, head of environment at Hinkley Point C, said: “Studies have shown the power station would have a negligible impact on local fish stocks with the proposed fish protection measures in place. These are a fish return system and water intakes specially designed to slow the water coming into the cooling pipes. Hinkley Point C will be the first power station in the Bristol Channel with fish protection measures.”
Source: Times (pay wall)
East Devon Watch 