The site in Grazeley had been earmarked for 15,000 homes
DEVELOPERS wanting to build up to 15,000 homes near a nuclear weapons factory in West Berkshire have suffered a major blow after they lost a legal battle.
The site in Grazeley, which is around one mile from AWE Burghfield, had been earmarked for a huge ‘garden town’ but the project has been thrown into doubt.
That’s because in March 2020, West Berkshire Council extended the Detailed Emergency Planning Zone (DEPZ) around the factory and it now covers that site.
Anyone in the zone can be affected by a “reasonably foreseeable” radiation emergency and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) says it’s not safe to build thousands of homes there because it would be “challenging” to evacuate or shelter all the residents quickly during a radiation emergency.