SIR — Last weekend my wife and I spent a pleasant Sunday evening and Monday morning in the Stolford area.  Earlier on the Sunday, in conversation with a West Somerset resident, the possible advantages which the area stands to gain from the construction of Hinkley C - investment in employment, industry, infrastructure etc - were pointed out to me.   

As I walked the shingle beach at Stolford at high tide on Sunday evening with the present power station behind me, I reflected on that conversation. 

I should declare I am not in favour of Hinkley C, although the cynic in me is convinced it is already, and has been for some time, a done deal. 

Hands have long since been shaken, agreements made, personal and corporate fortunes assured; the necessary appeals, reports, feasibility studies, protests, permissions all factored in by accountants long since.  

West Somerset Council is, I fear, no more than a pawn in a game being played out by rooks, castles and bishops who always win and who have no connection with, never mind regard for, the people of West Somerset.   

Nonetheless, I wish to acknowledge my disappointment at the district council's granting of planning permission to EDF to carry out preparatory works on the site of the proposed third nuclear reactor.  Their decision simply confirms my suspicions about the eventual outcome.

I should also declare that I have a personal conviction that behind created order there is a benevolent power or force, understood by different traditions and cultures as Gaia, Mother Earth, God etc. 

But, call it what you will, fundamentally humanity appears entirely out of sync with it and, worse, appears intent on a competitive relationship with that power rather than one of harmony regardless of the cost.

Hinkley C, I believe, supports this premise.

But, and there is an irony here, our energy-hungry consciousness condemns us to pay homage to a deity whether we like it or not, albeit one entirely without mercy and demanding in the extreme – Mammon.   

We seem too to have an insatiable enthusiasm for the mega farms, mega stores, mega economy and, of course, mega power generation.   

And despite experience having clearly proven mega breakdown equals mega problems - Fukushima, the European economy - we cling resolutely to that enthusiasm.

From an entirely different perspective, I am privileged to be a grandfather and candidly when it comes to things like Hinkley C I worry about their legacy.  

Do we really think it right to leave behind for countless future generations to come our problems for them to solve?

I am not an economist or a scientist, engineer or environmentalist, but I do applaud the skills of those who are, but it seems obvious to me that those skills would be best used working in partnership with the world in which we live.

The media warns us daily of extinction and irreversible damage to the natural world and yet such problems are compounded daily. 

Permission to despoil a large parcel of land for all of eternity in exchange for a roundabout and some modest car park rental income is just one of many examples. 

Why is investment in significantly smaller scale projects embracing a variety of entirely environmentally friendly energy generating technologies (sun, wind, hydro, methane from sewage, bio fuels, small-scale tidal schemes etc) not being developed more meaningfully? 

Comparable sums to the costs of Hinckley C could produce a huge number and range of smaller, localised schemes providing all the benefits promised by Hinkley C but without the downsides.

The majority of people with whom I have discussed this matter do not support the building of Hinkley C though most are those least likely to do anything about it. I sincerely hope my own 11th hour protest will challenge this last assumption.

Colin Snell,

Taunton.