Energy in History

Welsh farmers against nuclear development

 In the 2000s and 2010s, successive plans were unveiled by consortiums to build new nuclear power stations at Wylfa on the island of Ynys Mon/Anglesey in North Wales.

An earlier power station, Wylfa A, was built at the site by the Central Electricity Generating Board but began decommissioning in 2001. Horizon, a company established by the Germany multinational RWE and later taken over by Toshiba, wished to build a new site and argued that they needed new land.

This led to confrontations with local farmers who refused to sell their land, which in some cases had been in the family for centuries.

These quotes are from oral testimonies recorded with Richard and Gwenda Jones and Katie Hayward, respectively, on their farms in Ynys Mon in May 2022. Neil Crumpton from the People Against Wylfa B group joined the discussions and can be heard in the conversation too.

Richard and Gwenda Jones, dairy farmers

Richard describes the farm:

"...family home for generations. It’s not that we’ve got a hold on the land. The land’s got a hold on us."

Gwenda adds:

"That’s what we clung on to when we were under threat. The land really means a lot to us, our attachment to the land. I’ve lived here for nearly 40 years. A very long long time."

Richard says he hasn’t been on holiday in 25 years. Gwenda explains they had a caravan when the children were young.

Gwenda:

"We never went very far because if there was a problem then we could come back."

Richard:

"Why would you want a passport?"

Gwenda:

"We don’t feel the need to go anywhere."

The conversation turns to language. They both speak Welsh as their first language.

Gwenda:

"We do apologise if we hesitate a little bit because we hesitate when we have to speak English."

Richard refers to having done:

"...so many interviews done in Welsh and in English. You get used to speaking in English but for years now we just speak Welsh."

Gwenda says:

"very [important]. The Welsh culture. There is a definite decline when you go out and about. I just go locally or to Holyhead where I do my main shopping. There’s definitely a decline in the Welsh speaking. You don’t hear the Welsh language as much."

No longer producing Welsh greeting cards was noticeable to her:

"I feel it’s under threat"

and claims young people refuse to speak Welsh:

"...when you know fine well they’ve been taught."

Richard says:

"It isn't the language of the playground. I remember a time when the first Wylfa power station came to Cemaes. I was at primary school in Cemaes and everyone was Welsh-speaking. And then maybe during that time, before Wylfa maybe, you’d get the odd one, English person, coming in, in no time at all they’d learn Welsh. Then when Wylfa came in you’d have more than two or three I would say, you didn’t have a chance. If you’ve got more than two, that’s it! It changes tremendously. I was only a child but I remember the time in the school it was like flicking a lightswitch. The change was drastic. The children were a lot more streetwise than we were! And the language. I’m not talking English or whatever. I’d never heard of them. I’d no idea! Not just in Cemaes."

The developers threatened to move to compulsory purchase of the entire farm, having implied to the Joneses that they were only interested in a small portion.

The farmers were ultimately successful in resisting after being supported by the People Against Wylfa B and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, the Welsh Language Society.

Richard recalled receiving an email – whilst milking the cows – demanding "half the farm."

Gwenda says:

"We were in shreds because we could see this on the screen. Just in total disbelief because of the way they’d misled us making they think it’s nothing big when they were taking away nearly everything."

Richard adds:

"Some people would think they could make a fortune here. They were paying 50, 60 thousand pound an acre. But that never entered our minds you know. We never negotiated a price with them. It never came into it."

Gwenda:

"We didn’t want to know. We didn’t want to know."

Richard:

"That’s the difference. That's where the roots make a difference. That’s why I said before that the land’s got a hold on us. It just never came into it."

Gwenda:

"They also threatened us with compulsory purchase. If you don’t take what we’re going to offer you then you might be worse off. We just stood firm and said do what you want but we’re not moving, we’re not selling."

Richard:

"The first thing that comes to your mind is 'what chance have we got against a big company?' We can’t afford solicitors. There’s no chance. That’s how we came to the media wasn’t it? We had thought first, because the fields are facing the main road, empty fertilizer bags saying 'No To Wylfa B'. You know, get some attention. Anyway we didin't have to do that."

Gwenda knew a journalist and got in touch to ask for advice:

"She said to me you’ve got your story, you don’t need your fertilizer bags! … It’s not something we wanted to do, to go public, giving interviews to use that sort of thing. It was something we had to do."

An interview was broadcast on the radio. Gwenda describes what happened next:

"a stream of phone calls from journalists, Welsh, English, radio, TV, to the point that they were queueing up the yard waiting for interviews."

Richard adds:

"Maybe we were lucky... there were not much in the news that period, for maybe three or four days. I think it had more to do with the David and Goliath story than nuclear. And that’s why we got so much support from everywhere in the world. Of course, nuclear came into it as well."

Gwenda:

"It was the personal story to it as well as the nuclear side. As Richard said, we’d been writing letters. We sat down. One Saturday we sat down. As I said previously it was a pretty low period. A pretty dark period in our lives. And we said how are we going to get out of this hole? We can’t just sit here with our head in our hands. So we thought, we’ve just got to do something. Get ourselves up and do something. And that’s when I said to Richard we’ve got to write to everyone we know. And that’s the starting point. And then the media interest. All of a sudden, little Jones family was known in all sorts of countries. We had an offer from Germany to pay all our legal costs. An anti-nuclear group in Germany. We never took up their offer. We never had a legal representative because we wrote all the letters ourselves."

Katie Hayward, honeybee farmer

Katie Hayward had more recently begun an award-winning honeybee farm not far from the Jones dairy farm. The farm had long been in Katie’s family, but she had taken it over more recently.

"What did they call it in my wedding? My rural idyll. So I discussed with my husband and I ploughed my lifesavings into renovating this and making it a honeybee farm. And the first two years we’d won six national awards and appeared in 17 television programmes and appeared in the news quite a lot. So we were the voice for the BBC with bees. It’s my heart and soul. When I was a little girl I used to play here even when it was derelict."

She had begun work on the farm not long before Horizon made their initial announcement in 2013.

"Around about 2013 it was too late for me to get out of this place. I thought, think of it sensible, even on a rushed construction project you’re looking at five years of me living near a building site and let’s face it I’ve seen enough of it. They reassured me this Horizon company that I’d be safe and the farm wouldn’t be touched, they’d keep communicating with me and all this. And I kept asking for their actual reports, their stats, their vibrations reports. And they knew my background. Some of their consultants had actually worked for me on jobs. And all the way through I’m thinking something’s not adding up. They’re just smiling and they’re just sponsoring everything on the island and everywhere I looked there was Horizon flags.“Then the Development Consent Order paperwork came out and all of a sudden they stopped answering emails. They refused to answer ITV. They refused to answer anybody. But I managed to wangle a copy of their DCO paperwork, the whole pack. As a near neighbour or what’s called a stakeholder you are allowed to make representation to make your voice heard or contribute to it. When I got the documents and read through them all, there was reports in there that my house would be structurally damaged. When I looked at the flood calculations for them, cause when they were gonna build it they were gonna clear the site and they were gonna do what’s called a reduced dig. Now to do a reduced dig in an area where there’s three rivers you have to divert the rivers and then you have to reduce the groundwater level. And you have to do that, especially when you’re building a reactor base. You have to do it when you’re doing the basement on a Tesco carpark so you have to do it. And they were gonna pump it all into my driveway, flooding my farm. And you just smiled and you promised me that my home would be safe all the way through this. And they completed still shut me down, wouldn’t speak to me. They point blank refused to speak to me. They all flew to Japan and got their photos taken there with MPs. I arranged to speak to Amber Rudd [Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Climate Change].

My life turned into a nightmare literally overnight. There was diggers on the field facing us.They demolished the homes of all of my neighbours whilst telling me I was safe. It was heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking. I don’t blame anybody for leaving. I wouldn’t even say I was disappointed. I think everybody else has different situations and I was witness to them purchasing one of my friend’s houses when they were under the old banner, before Horizon, before Fukushima. And I witnessed the sale of that. And they bullied an old woman and they told her they didn’t have a choice. I physically seen this. They literally told a 65-year-old lady that she didn’t have a choice and she had to leave and that was her business and her home and every night I saw that woman break down."

Throughout our interview in 2022, Katie showed her determination to retain her farm, which was not for sale.

"Every morning I wake up and I wake up in a house my great-great-great grandparents built Not everything is for sale. Not everything can be bought. And they’ll carry me out of here before I leave. They’ve got not right to tell people to leave their homes. They’re not just houses or property, they’re homes. Someone’s gotta tell them what they’re doing is wrong. And if it’s not me, who’s it gonna be? Y’know."