THE Hollywood A-lister Robert Redford has waded into the controversy over plans to build the UK’s first new coal-fired power station in three decades.

The actor sent a letter of support last week to the World Development Movement (WDM), one of the campaign groups planning a mass demonstration at E.ON’s 2,000MW power plant near Kingsnorth, Kent, next month.

Camp for Climate Action, the group that stormed Heathrow to protest against plans for a third runway, has promised to invade and shut down the plant that provides power for 1.5m homes in the area.

At a WDM meeting last week in Chatham, Kent, Redford’s letter was read to the eco warriors. He congratulated them for “coming together to learn more and to do more . . . coal power plants or, as you call them, stations are bad for public health.”

The activists are opposed to E.ON’s plan to build a new 1,600MW station to replace the existing plant at the site – the first new coal-fired power station built in Britain in 33 years.

The Hollywood star’s intervention is an unwelcome development for E.ON. It is taking several steps to bolster its defences. The utility has erected an electric fence to keep intruders out of the most dangerous parts of the site and has set up motion sensors so trespassers can be quickly apprehended.

E.ON will go to court on Tuesday to extend the remit of an injunction it secured earlier this month to include the jetty on the river Medway where coal ships unload.

A Camp for Climate Action spokesman said the group planned to invade “aerially” as well as through the undergrowth surrounding the site.

Times Recommends

• Minister in talks with Saudis to protect creditors
• Premier Inn hits back in £29-a-room row
• Bankers hit back at 'populist' bonus supertax