NUCLEAR energy group Hitachi/Horizon will be the target for a protest in Gloucester by Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development (STAND), on Monday (March 11, noon).

On the second anniversary of the Japanese tsunami, and subsequent explosions which destroyed the Fukushima nuclear reactors, the group plans to raise concerns that should a similar event befall the proposed new nuclear plant at Oldbury, the Forest of Dean would become "a wasteland for centuries."

Barbara French of STAND said: "We are organising this demonstration on the second anniversary of the Fukushima disaster top raise awareness that a similar disaster could happen here if the plans to build and enormous nuclear power station on the Oldbury flood plain are carried out.

"If a similar accident were to occur at Oldbury and the same 30km evacuation plans were put into place as were necessary at Fukushima, then all of Bristol, most of Gloucester and Newport and of course all of the population in between, including the Forest of Dean, would have to be evacuated. Where would they all go? The area could become a wasteland for centuries."

She added: "Hitachi Horizon say the new plant will be built to withstand and foreseeable eventualities, but of course that is exactly what they said about Fukushima. Yet it was still destroyed by an act of nature. Rising sea levels and extreme weather events put the site, which is actually below sea level at high tide on many days of the year, at extreme risk."

The organisers are providing coaches from the Forest to the event, where they will be meeting representatives from the company in order to present them with with a letter voicing their concerns.

Places on the coaches can be booked on 01291 689327. More information is available from the organisers' website at http://www.standagainstoldbury.org">www.standagainstoldbury.org

John Gilbert, head of commercial development for Horizon Nuclear Power, commented on the protest: "We'd like to reassure communities around our proposed site that we're still in the very early stages of our plans to develop a new nuclear power station near Oldbury-on-Severn. No decisions have yet been made about our project and this won't happen until we've carried out formal consultation with local people, allowing them to have their say and shape our proposals.

"We're working on the detailed timescales for this but it has always been our plan to develop our site on Anglesey first, with the first station there due to begin operation in the first half of the 2020s.

"A new power station at Oldbury will bring thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of pounds of investment to the region, as well as providing secure, low carbon energy. Our proposals will be subject to intense scrutiny by the UK regulators and we'll have to show that the power station is protected from natural and man-made hazards."