Green campaigner to visit lakes

8:35am Tuesday 12th June 2007

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THE DIRECTOR of Friends of the Earth, one of the country's leading environmental groups, is to visit Radley Lakes, near Abingdon, to support to the campaign to protect the site.

The visit by Tony Juniper today is part of the Save Radley Lakes campaign to stop the owners of Didcot power station, RWE npower, from using Thrupp Lake as a dump for spent fuel ash. The company has obtained planning permission despite fierce opposition.

The lakes were a childhood haunt for Mr Juniper when he lived in Oxfordshire more than 30 years ago.

He is supporting the campaign to register the lakes as a Village Green.

If approved, Village Green status would protect the lakes from development. The inquiry into the application resumes later this month.

Mr Juniper said: "It makes me angry that the waste of energy and emissions causing climate change are destroying a place that was of enormous value to me as a boy. Radley Lakes have been earmarked as a dump for all the filth that comes from Didcot's outmoded and polluting coal burning.

"Radley Lakes were my childhood haunts and I am now haunted by the impending destruction.

"Didcot power station will be be shut down in 2015 and unless RWE npower changes tack, or the area is registered as a Village Green, the destruction of the lakes will be its legacy."