PWR power-station plan for Chapelcross generates assorted protests

SCOTLAND'S first pressurised water reactors would generate electricity

which would go south of the Border. And an English reservoir, Kielder,

is being earmarked as a possible source of water to feed the proposed

station at Annan. One cannot, therefore, blame the local councillor who

publicly asked British Nuclear Fuels recently why they had not

considered building their controversial plant at ''say, Hartlepool''.

Chapelcross, Scotland's oldest and one of the world's earliest nuclear

power stations, is quietly slipping past Sellafield and Dounreay into

the limelight. British Nuclear Fuels have pledged #30m for phase two of

a study of the feasibility of replacing their ageing Magnox station at

Annan with a huge PWR station. The existing one, whose cooling towers

have become a prominent landmark for miles around, was opened in 1959 to

produce weapons-grade plutonium, with electricity as a by-product.

Although its projected lifespan was 25 years, it now has the all-clear

to generate until 1999.

In its 150-page preliminary feasibility document BNFL have done their

utmost to placate environmentalists; they have even printed the study on

recycled paper. Serious reservations, however, are being expressed, not

only by conservationists but by people who would normally not rock the

boat.

One such dissenter is Sir Rupert Buchanan-Jardine, MC, Baronet, who is

master of the Dumfriesshire Hunt, laird of the extensive Castlemilk and

Corries Estates, and a prominent county Tory, one of whose ancestors

founded the Hong Kong opium combine, Jardine Matheson. He sees the

proposed development as a threat to tourism and to the amenity of a

relatively tranquil rural area, and has joined the Chapelcross Watchdog

and Action Group. ''Opinion in the area is hardening against it,'' he

said, adding that it would spoil fishing on local rivers.

Mr Archibald Findlay, factor to the Duke of Buccleuch, spoke out

vehemently against the proposals at a recent public meeting. Another

unlikely critic is Mr John Thomson, managing director of Thomson,

Roddick, and Laurie, the auctioneers and estate agents, and president of

the Dumfries Conservative Association, who has warned BNFL that as many

as 1000 houses and three dozen farms were now virtually unsaleable

because of the uncertainty of their plans.

Even Dumfries MP Sir Hector Monro, Scotland's longest-serving Tory MP,

has reservations about a Chapelcross 2. Notwithstanding his staunch

support for Chapelcross, he is concerned about the implications of

access by sea, road, and rail. ''I am also concerned about the lack of

assurances over future customers for electricity, and about the proposed

size of the plant,'' he declared.

The men who will face Sir Hector at the hustings at the next General

Election are all against the proposed PWR.

Needless to say, conservationists are anxious that BNFL are now

resigned to a public inquiry; they now talk, too, of spending as much as

#185m to get Chapelcross 2 on stream. They have outlined four options

for flooding valleys in order to get the 300 million litres of water

needed per day to cool the reactors. They are planning a vast marine

off-loading terminal in the Solway Firth, to the dismay of the Royal

Society for the Protection of Birds.

Mr Steve Sankey, the RSPB's Scottish spokesman, has warned that the

firth is of international value and part of a site of special scientific

interest which supports many thousands of wildfowl and waders. ''We are

obviously extremely concerned at the potential disturbance. The area is

of international importance,'' said Mr Sankey. ''We think there should

be consultation, serious consultation, even at this early stage.''

The RSPB's Campfield Marshes reserve in Cumbria would be directly

opposite Seafield, one of two favoured sites for a terminal. Oil

spillages and other disturbances would pose a direct threat to marine

life, adds Mr Sankey.

The Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace dismiss BNFL's plans

as completely pointless, and Chapelcross Watchdog and Action Group

chairman, Jacky Beswick, says: ''At the moment Chapelcross has a low

profile and the majority of tourists visit Dumfries and Galloway

blissfully unaware that there is a nuclear power station producing

weapons materials.

''However, with cooling towers twice the size of the existing ones

plus new road and rail links, enlarged transmission pylons and the

inevitable publicity of a public inquiry, it is unlikely that

Chapelcross will ever be inconspicuous again.''

Meanwhile, BNFL have pledged their concern for the environment.

Chapelcross, they say, has won three ''swords of honour'', which are

awarded to the 20 safest British companies each year. The ageing station

has also won 27 consecutive British Safety Council awards.

Recently, none the less, they have scored several own-goals. One of

their options for a reservoir would mean flooding a beautiful valley

near Lockerbie which accommodates a holiday-fun farm for disadvantaged

children. Mr Alan Emmerson, the man who runs Flysheet Camps Scotland as

an educational and therapeutic resource from a 250-year-old farmhouse,

found out about the plan only by reading BNFL's documents. ''BNFL

dismissed us in one sentence. They must have looked at us through

binoculars and decided that we were a crowd of hippies or something

living here,'' said Mr Emmerson.

BNFL also sent photocopied miniaturised maps out to local landowners,

maps which were criticised as ''hopelessly misleading''. Mr Raymond

Kerr, who has spent the past three years converting an old schoolhouse

near Chapelcross into a luxury home, had to spend an hour and a half to

come to the conclusion that a proposed reservoir would just miss

submerging his home.