Sellafield Blockade, why it happened.

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday February 17, 2002 22:08 by Tim Hourigan

Letter by protester to the Whithaven News, Cumbria.

Greetings,

I would like to tell your readers the reasons behind the Sellafield
blockade.
First off, let me say that we regret the undue inconvenience that was caused
to drivers that morning. Despite the notice we gave to BNFL and the police,
it seems no-one told the workers we were coming.
Our lock-down protestors blocked the Sellafield access roads, not the A595.
The large numbers of single-passenger private cars used by the workers
caused a tailback onto the A595. Car-pooling and buses would seriously
improve things there, especially if there ever needed to be an evacuation
from the plant.
If all the workers tried to leave in an emergency they wouldn’t get very far
before they caused their own gridlock.
A lot of you will be wondering why we chose to blockade on our third protest
here.
On our first protest, we simply asked BNFL to meet us, view 5,000 signatures
on our petition and answer our questions about the safety of the plant.
They refused to even come to the door of reception, so we held a peaceful,
musical demo in the car park.
In December, we again asked BNFL to meet us, to view the 7,000 signatures
and answer our questions.
We were met only by the police and the black-clad UKAEA security men. There
was a small blockade at the north gate, with similar equipment to that used
on Feb 14th.
On that date, December 20th, I was talking to a senior officer about the
protest, and we informed that officer that we would be back on Feb 14. In
the week before the protest, that same officer rang my home in Limerick
twice to confirm that we would indeed be protesting on Feb 14th. I confirmed
this fact on both occasions.
It would seem that this information was not passed on to some people as no
arrangements were made to bus in the workers. No warning was given to
commuters, and for some unknown reason, the specially trained protest unit
"SGI" was not available to cut the protestors free from the lock-on devices.
Thus we had frustrated, untrained police officers pulling hard on the
protestors and causing them unnecessary injury.
I spoke to all the senior officers that were at the main access road. I
informed them of our intentions, and of the procedures which are normally
followed at similar actions such as Faslane. I did not come across anyone
called DS Turnbull, who made his ill-informed comments later on the radio.
All of this could have been avoided if the right people had been talking to
each other.
Plenty of notice was given that we were coming, especially to BNFL who saw
us the DAY BEFORE we got to Sellafield.
On Feb13th, 160 of the campaigners travelled to Risley, in Cheshire, where a
small delegation went into BNFL headquarters to politely ask for a public
relations officer to formally accept our petition (now at 10,000 signatures)
and answer our questions on camera. They were told that no one was available
to accept the petition or to answer our questions.
There then began a 90-minute demonstration in the forecourt of BNFL
headquarters.
It was loud and musical but not aggressive.
The next morning, we blockaded Sellafield. This is not designed to
inconvenience the people of Cumbria. It is intended to put pressure on BNFL
and the British government to practice the ‘open and accountable’ relations
that they profess to believe in.
Sellafield will not go away if we ignore it.
We will not go away just because BNFL chooses to ignore us.
We will come back again and again. We will treat people with respect and
dignity and expect the same in return. To avoid any further inconvenience to
the travelling public, we will inform the Whitehaven News when we decide on
the date of our next protest.
We hope that this should allow the workers time to arrange car-pooling, BNFL
to put on extra buses, and other commuters to make the necessary changes to
their journey times. Our message is to the BNFL management, and the British
Government. It is their attention that we are seeking.

Regards,

Tim Hourigan.