IT'S good to know that safety is at the top of Horizon's priorities in their proposals for a nuclear power plant at Oldbury (Mr Gilbert in The Forester last week).

However, this rather begs the question as to why they are proposing to put it in a potential flood risk area.

And even if the plant itself could be guaranteed as 100 per cent safe, there is the vexing question of how to safely handle the nasty by-products which hang around for millennia.

On a more mundane level there is also the fact that Horizon is proposing a monstrosity of a structure to be built in an AONB, visible for many miles around according to the company's own data. If we want to maintain our current lifestyles we need more power generating capacity.

Perhaps the mega millions being spent on new nuclear plants would be better invested in fast tracking research into technologies which aren't going to destroy us if they go wrong. If safety really is genuinely the most important thing, then the only way of absolutely guaranteeing this is surely not to build the plant at all.

Cheryl Mayo

Brains Green