A major campaign by Andrew Griffiths MP and East Staffordshire Conservatives has succeeded in ending plans to build a power station close to homes in Branston and Shobnall. Local Conservatives gathered over 2,500 signatures from homes near where Irish developers had wanted to site a £500 million, 960 megawatt facility.

Local East Staffordshire councillors Richard Grosvenor, Patricia Ackroyd and Mick Bowering, along with Shobnall ward member Khadim Thathall all added their voices to the campaign, led by Burton's new MP, Andrew Griffiths and were overjoyed when the plans were dropped.

Campaigners highlighted five main concerns, including the impact on air quality, potential noise pollution, additional traffic, the height of the chimney stacks and how the canal network will be affected by the pipeline needed to feed the power station.

Andrew said: “We recognise that there is an energy problem in this country and that we need to find solutions. We are not against building gas power stations. However, power stations need to be in the right place and the Centrum site was simply the wrong site. We think there are better alternatives to building a power station so close to residential properties and I'm pleased the promoters of this scheme have seen sense and withdrawn."