Peace Group highlights nuclear risk at Olympic stadium

Rae Street, Pat Sanchez and Philip Gilligan

Members of Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group joined anti-nuclear campaigners in East London on Saturday (10 July 2010) to highlight the fact that trains carrying highly-radioactive nuclear cargoes such as fuel rods are being taken through the 2012 Olympic site and other densely populated areas of the country on a weekly basis.

Rae Street, Pat Sanchez and Philip Gilligan walked around the Olympic stadium to Stratford railway station where they joined fellow protesters in a symbolic ‘die-in’ in front of the Olympic Clock.

Pat Sanchez said: “We were there because we need to highlight the devastating consequences of any accident to or terrorist attack on one of these nuclear trains, and we were there from Rochdale because this is a danger that affects the whole country.

“The trains passing the Olympic stadium each week are carrying highly dangerous radioactive waste from the nuclear power stations at Sizewell in Essex and Dungeness in Kent. They go all the way to Sellafield in Cumbria via the Midlands and the North West.

Ms Sanchez added: “Any accident or attack could have devastating consequences in Rochdale as well as East London. The potentially deadly cargoes on these trains are an inevitable by-product of the nuclear power industry. The fact that they are being transported from one end of the country to the other shows that the nuclear power industry doesn’t know what to do with its existing radioactive waste, let alone the even greater quantities of waste that would result from an increase in the number of nuclear plants.

Ms Sanchez concluded: “We need to stop these nuclear trains running through our towns and cities and we need to end our use of nuclear energy. We need to transfer the money currently wasted on hidden and not-so-hidden subsidies to the nuclear industry to funding insulation of our homes and developing safe and sustainable energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and geothermal sources. Nuclear power is not worth the risk.”