THE Russians are coming, not by submarine and stealth, apparently. This time with aspirations for building nuclear plants at Anglesea and Oldbury.

"The British market is very attractive" according to a spokesman from Russia's state owned energy company, Rosatom.

It's the Russian state, remember, that turned off Europe's gas a few years ago when reasserting their sphere of influence on Ukraine. The same Russian state which sent us polonium unwrapped and designed the reactor which caused the Chernobyl disaster.

Our government became concerned about energy security and increasing dependence on Russian gas a few years ago. Aside from the ecological argument, it's good reason to promote local sustainable energy initiatives.

I run a local business, which has had involvement in Eastern Europe – community microenterprise development in Siberia, following Russia's economic crisis of 1998. At that time the risk was the uneasy combination of nuclear stockpiles and destitute scientists. In Ukraine, we'd been helping the former weapons research lab in Kharkiv toward a project to develop medical isotopes for the US market. Our major focus however was tackling poverty, where children are exploited by organised crime.

In Parkend, for the past three years I've been trying to leverage a community enterprise, a co-operative form of business known as a community benefit society. From 2009, with an application for BBC Village SOS the aim had been to resurrect a derelict local shop: from last year seeking collaboration with other local organisations for a biomass community heating project.

From experience, I can assure you that dealing in Russia has proven a lesser obstacle and more fruitful than finding support for sustainable local energy. There is no local policy or support for community enterprise at district or county level. This is strangely at odds with central government rhetoric, unless we're talking about stealth privatisation of our health service.

The lesson we'll eventually learn is that in placing commercial interest ahead of social end environmental benefit, we set a precedent for others to do likewise to us and we are simply not in the same league as Russia's moguls.

– Jeff Mowatt, Parkend.