The news reported by the SNJ that there have been three accidental breaches of the anti-terrorist no-fly zone at Berkeley nuclear power station, including a US fighter jet within a few hundred feet, makes a disturbing read(12/04/04). Berkeley still has nuclear material and a collision could have a "monstrous" impact. The threat of terrorists is bad enough, but it seems we also have the threat of accidental pilot error. An F15 jet for example has a top speed of two-and-a-half times the speed of sound and could ignite the equivalent of a very big dirty bomb. There are now 57 reported cases of no-fly zone breaches near nuclear power plants in Britain since 2000, including a Hercules aircraft coming within a wingspan of a cooling tower at Sellafield. This month is infact the 18th anniversary of Chernobyl which drove hundreds of thousands from their homes. Huge areas of land were contaminated with radioactive material in the then Soviet Union and the rest of Europe. 400 farms in the UK are still contaminated and subject to regular testing because of Chernobyl. The news of these no-fly zone breaches also comes in the same week that we learn BNFL has to close Sizewell A for months due to faults and is to get yet another bailout, this time £280m from the US Government. Widely quoted suspicions link this bail out to the Blair's support for the war in Iraq. How many reasons do we need to close our dangerous, unpopular and uneconomic nuclear power stations? Yet the Government have just announced they are reconsidering building more nuclear power stations. No one is ever likely to fly an aeroplane into a wind farm. We know renewable energy is the way forward.

Philip Booth, Press Officer, Gloucestershire Green Party.