After Christmas a friend of mine pointed out that the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) had put in an application to construct a new warhead processing facility, to the south-west of Reading at their Burghfield site. This was filed with West Berkshire Council (WBC) and it would seem they hadn't spoken to RBC planning officers, despite its proximity to suburban-Reading.
The MOD has operated at Burghfield since 1954, and it now forms one of the two primary operating sites for AWE. This new facility will be used to decommission old Trident nuclear warheads (WE177s) and manufacture the UK's new ones. I understand that a level of atomic weapon final assembly and maintenance has already been carried out at the Burghfield.
This facility potentially limits Readings growth in a south-west direction (the village of Burghfield may see this as a good thing), and appears to be on a flood plain. AWE say that complex hydrology models have been used to design a facility would could withstand these floods.
I then asked for a meeting to be set-up asap between myself, the Conservative and Labour Lead on Environment, AWE, the Director of ENCAS and RBC planning officers. I also asked RBC planning officers if they had been informed about this application. I then proposed the Labour Lead on Environment get our planning officers to talk to WBC planning officers to try and slow the process so as Reading actually got a say in this, and thus the people of Reading got consulted.
The plan itself is described as:
The original WBC application can be seen here and the RBC application here.
If you have a comment I would urge you to get in contact with me (and I will collate all resident comments) or you can e-mail planning direct on planningcomments@reading.gov.uk, the closing date for comments is the 20 February 2009.
I am trying to keep an open mind on this so as I can report your views. I will, however, point out any problems I can see as well as the positives.
Thanks, Cllr Goodall (Also posted on my personal blog)
