It believes that whatever it does will now endanger its plans for growing GM crops commercially in Britain.Senior sources at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) agree with environmentalists that the industry deliberately sought to pick a fight by choosing the site. The row is developing into a crucial showdown between the industry and environmentalists, one that it seems likely to lose.The row became an election issue yesterday when the Conservatives described the choosing of the site as "bizarrely insensitive'' and promised to stop the trial if elected. The research centre lies in one of the most marginal seats in the country where Andy King, the Labour MP, is defending a majority of just 495, making it eighth on the Tories' hit-list.Neither the Government nor the Scientific Steering Committee, which approved the site, were informed of its proximity to the centre when they gave it the go-ahead last month. When he was told, Michael Meacher, the Environment minister, called it "highly provocative'' and wrote to the committee, Aventis (the firm responsible) and Scimac, the industry body conducting the trials, to ask them to abandon it.Professor Chris Pollock, the committee chairman, wrote to Mr Meacher on Wednesday refusing to withdraw the committee's approval. That provoked one member, from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to threaten to resign. The industry was also ready by midweek to reject Mr Meacher's appeal, confident that he would lose his job after the election, but has been astounded to come under pressure from Maff and the Prime Minister, on whose support it has always been able to count.Industry sources privately recognise that it is now in deep trouble whatever it decides.
If it submits to the pressure and scraps the trial it would set a damaging precedent. Research by Greenpeace and the Soil Association show that 36 organic farms lie within two miles of trial sites all over the country. And if it was accepted that no GM crops could be grown that close to organic produce it would become impossible to grow them commercially in Britain.On the other hand, if it ignores the pressure it will provoke the Government's anger and cause the RSPB and possibly English Nature, the Government's official wildlife watchdog, to resign from the committee, destroying its credibility and undermining the trial programme. And if the crops grew they would be bound to be destroyed by protesters later in the year.Aventis blamed "election fever'' for the crisis and accused the Government of "changing the rules'' on the trials. Scimac said that the scientific procedures followed in choosing the site should be kept "sacrosanct''.Tim Yeo, the Conservative agriculture spokesman, has written to Mr Meacher to say that going ahead with the trial "would send out a signal to the world that the British Government has no regard for the integrity of Britain's organic produce".
He called on the Government to abandon the trial and said that the RSPB would be "entirely justified in resigning should it go ahead''.. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Dungeness nuclear power plant in Kent after a fire broke out near one of the reactors yesterday. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Dungeness nuclear power plant in Kent after a fire broke out near one of the reactors yesterday. Residents living nearby saw steam and black smoke billowing from the turbine and the police warned them to keep their windows and doors closed while fire fighters tackled the blaze, the result of an electrical fault. Several hundred staff and contractors involved in servicing the number two reactor were on the site, 60 miles south-east of London.The power station, operated by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), played down the incident saying there were no injuries and "no radiological consequences". The fire is the second to hit a BNFL power station in less than a month. Workers had to be evacuated after a spark from a welding torch started a fire at the Trawsfynydd plant near Dolgellau, north Wales, on 3 May.The fires have come at a bad time for the nuclear industry, and are an awkward reminder of the potential dangers of a nuclear accident just as the industry was starting to glimpse a better future after more than 20 years on the defensive.Last Thursday, energy strategists for the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, announced plans to greatly expand nuclear power in the US no single nuclear reactor has been ordered since before the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. On Wednesday, a Japanese government panel approved the construction of two reactors after a halt since a 1999 accident.
