The local socio-economic impacts of major power station projects

The Impacts Assessment Unit (IAU) at Oxford Brookes University has pioneered research on the local socio-economic impacts of major power station projects. Resultant insights have included: • Increasing focus on socio-economic impacts in the assessments of such projects; • Use of associated planning techniques and mitigation measures; and • Use of the research by wide range of stakeholders, including developers, local communities, local authorities and various agencies (e.g. health, education etc). Within the REF period these insights have been deployed in new power station impact research, recently (2011-2013) forming part of the successful EDF (international electricity utility company www.edf.com) application to the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) (now National Infrastructure Directorate within the UK Planning Inspectorate (PINS)) to build a new nuclear power station Hinkley Point C (Somerset), plus consultation studies for a new nuclear power station Sizewell C (Suffolk)