Nuclear power stations are rarely famed for their aesthetic quality and the brutish facility in the Kent seaside town of Dungeness does not buck that trend. Despite its unsightliness, residents are “quite affectionate” towards it, and the nuclear plant isn’t the only striking building in the village, as some residents have taken to converting old railway carriages into liveable properties they now call home.
Councillor Alan Martin told Express.co.uk that the town’s “unique” post-war architecture makes Dungeness a truly “wonderful, mystical place”.
The local politician conceded that for many visitors, the nuclear power stations, the first of which was constructed in 1965, may appear “big and bold” but he insisted the structure “doesn’t look out of place where it is, it somehow feels in-keeping”.
“I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘it’s a scar on the landscape and we wouldn’t want to see it there’.”
Cllr Martin’s council colleague Clive Goddard agreed, saying: “You drive down Dungeness and… if you looked at it [the nuclear plant] and you moved into the area you might think ‘bloody hell, what’s that?’ but we’ve all grown up with it.”
Cllr Martin explained that the “barren” landscape suits the sort of large industrial buildings that most towns would resent.
He said: “It’s essentially an area of shingle that has been growing each year because of longshore drift.
“It’s a relatively sort of barren kind of environment but if you go there, there’s something strangely appealing about it and there’s lots of people that go there on holiday.”
He added that some residents love the area so much, they’ve converted railway carriages into homes so that they can have property in the town.
He said: “There is a wonderful selection of different shacks, some of the buildings are like old railway carriages, some of them were previously industrial buildings. It’s a wonderful array of different buildings.
“There’s one main road that goes onto what they call the Dungeness Estate and if you were to drive down there at the weekend, you’ll see there’s not one house that looks the same and you’ll see that a lot of them are literally old railway carriages.
“They don’t have the wheels on them still, but essentially you can tell from the shape of the roof and the length of it [that the house] quite clearly is an old railway carriage and they’ve converted it to a lovely little wooden cottage sat there on the shingle.”
According to The Spaces, there are a staggering 30 homes in the town that have been converted from old railway carriages.
Despite local residents’ fondness for the nuclear power station, the community had a safety scare which saw the reactors temporarily closed down.
In the months prior to the pandemic, the two reactors – Dungeness B-21 and B-22 – were taken out of use to enable an inspection and repair work of the pipes.
Fortunately, residents can rest safe, as according to the American Nuclear Society, it is “impossible” for a reactor to explode in a similar vein to a nuclear weapon because weapons contain “very special materials” in very specific configurations, neither of which are present in a nuclear reactor.
