Locals 'oppose' nuclear waste plant - parish council

Opponents of plans to seal some of the UK’s most lethal nuclear waste underground have called for communities to have more of say.

Whicham Parish Council in west Cumbria held a postal survey, in which more than three quarters of those who responded opposed the idea.

It is part of an area in which officials are exploring the possibility of siting a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).

Cumberland Council said there was “no reason” for parish councils to conduct ballots.

Nuclear Waste Services, the body that oversees the project, described a GDF as "a highly engineered structure consisting of multiple barriers that will provide protection over hundreds of thousands of years."

High-level nuclear waste would be sealed up to 1km (0.62 mile) underground, or possibly under the seabed.

Searches for a potential place for the facility are taking place in three areas, including two in Cumbria and another in Lincolnshire.

The process of identifying a site is expected to take 10 to 15 years and it could be ready to start receiving waste in the 2050s.

The Whicham postal vote was carried out in 2023 and the parish council said 251 out of 400 parishioners replied, which was a 63% turnout.

The council said 77% were opposed to a GDF in the parish, 15% were in favour, 6% were neutral, while the rest of the forms were blank.

Richard Outram, from Nuclear Free Local Authorities, a group of councils opposed to nuclear developments, said other parish councils should follow Whicham and conduct polls.

“The geological disposal facility, or a nuclear waste dump, is a massive engineering project that’s going to impact on communities for tens of years,” he said.

“It’s important to regularly take the public temperature and one way of doing that is by each parish council holding a regular parish poll."

Cumberland Council is the authority with the power to withdraw local communities from the siting process.

It is also responsible for conducting a formal test of public support, such as a local referendum, before a site can be approved.

The Labour-led authority recently wrote to parish councils telling them they did not need to conduct polls because “detailed public opinion monitoring in the Search Areas is already carried out”.

It also said it was too early in the process to carry out an official test of public support.

Meanwhile, Nuclear Waste Services said surveys to monitor local opinion would be carried out by a professional polling company.

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