PROTESTERS braved wind and rain on New Year’s Eve to demonstrate against the construction of three nuclear reactors in some of Britain’s most picturesque countryside.

Preparatory work has started on the 500-acre site in Cumbria between the Lake District and the Irish Sea.

The campaigners walked to the site from the nearby village of Beckermet.

Radiation Free Lakeland (Rafl) says the development has bypassed usual planning processes.

Rafl’s Marianne Birkby said: “Moorside is the innocuous name the nuclear developers are calling the plan for three new nuclear reactors and associated sprawl.

“The area is beautiful, with ancient hedgerows and two sites of scientific interest and the River Ehen.”