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Whicham Parish Council will discuss the GDF and a letter requesting withdrawal of our area of focus from the process. Meets at Kirksanton Village Hall, 7.30 Wednesday, 12th March 2025.

At the last MTC meeting in February the council agreed to include two items on the agenda for their next meeting in March: To discuss whether to hold a public meeting to look at the potential negative effects of the GDF on our area and to discuss the motion “We, Millom Town Council, reject the area of focus as being beneficial to Bank Head.” The meeting will be held on Wednesday, 26th March. This will be confirmed when the agenda is published.

NOTES FROM A MEETING OF BANK HEAD RESIDENTS WITH FOUR LOCAL COUNCILLORS:  HAVERIGG: CLLRS BROWN AND FAULKNER AND CUMBERLAND: CLLRS KELLY AND PRATT.  22ND FEBRUARY 2025.

43 people attended the meeting – the majority were from Bank Head and nearby who have had letters from land agent about the GDF.

Jan Bridget, Introduced herself: she moved here five years ago and would not have moved here had she known about the nuclear dump. She jointly set up Millom and District Against the Nuclear Dump Facebook group a few years ago [2022] and later set up the South Copeland Against the GDF website. She is also Chair of Millom and District Local History Society. She said she organised the meeting having met two Bank Head residents whilst seeing local MP Michelle Scrogham about the GDF. She chaired the meeting.

She said the purpose of the meeting was to give people who live at Bank Head and close by the opportunity to voice their fears about the possibility of a GDF (nuclear dump) being sited next to where they live.

The Councillors introduced themselves: Cllr Janice Brown, Haverigg Councillor; Councillor Simone Faulkner who is current mayor; Councillor Bob Kelly and Councillor Andy Pratt, both Cumberland Councillors.

The following is not an exact recording but gives a flavour of the key concerns expressed at the meeting.

• Attendee: Need public support. Main road up North Lane – will this be the main transport route? Devaluing houses, houses not selling, compensation? Farmer’s lands? Consultation? Natterjack toads and birds; toads migrate into North Lane and gardens of houses there. Combe View unadopted road, full of pot holes, travesty.

• Attendee: Will I be made to sell my house in the future? Planning for extension???

• Attendee: Farmer – do I build a barn?

• Attendee: What do the council know?

• Cllr Brown: never been told at Millom Town Council what is going to happen if geology is  OK. No objections. No compulsory purchase and prison won’t close. Never been discussed despite chair of MTC being chair of South Copeland GDF Community Partnership.

• Attendee: Residents did not want Councillor Ged McGrath to attend.

• Attendee: Survey in 2009 conducted four boreholes but unable to access it online.

• Cllr Pratt didn’t know anything about it. Only knows what the public know. One person put Haverigg//Kirksanton forward. No transport routes identified. Unlikely North Lane, they want A roads and rail. No legislation that allows for compulsory purchase. Once consent order is given property protection scheme but not worth paper it’s written on. I’ve told them that. Five criteria, one of which will never meet i.e. ‘compelling need.’ For new nuclear plant boreholes wouldn’t go as deep to give them the information they need now. Four square metres is the maximum needed and need a minimum of one square metre. Next 18 months will be checking wildlife, etc., toads, prison. If area floods would move the site.

• Cllr Kelly: inland sites were not suitable, were looking under Black Combe, found area of rock that wasn’t suitable

• Attendee: Windfarm planned years ago, didn’t do it because of flood water table.

• Cllr Pratt: Headworks would be on land. If flooding won’t happen.

• Attendee: Bought two years ago on Bank Head and had we known wouldn’t have bought.

• Cllr Pratt: no search comes up until planning permission is sought – that is the legislation.

• Tim Kendall: is it not Cumberland policy?

Cllr Pratt: the potential site has been in the public domain for four years. Solicitors, land agents should have made people aware. Due diligence of solicitors.

• Attendee: The whole thing is a big black cloud hanging over us; want representatives for us not for GDF.

• Cllr Pratt, no councillors have been asked if they are for or against it. He is for a GDF somewhere.

• Attendee: we want a public vote now.

• Cllr Pratt is chair of Mid Copeland GDF Community Partnership and in favour of the process.

• Attendee: Residents had to call the meeting, MTC written to Ministry of Justice about prison but not contacted residents!

• Attendee: Not National Park, why not?

• Cllr Pratt: anyone can apply for funding, it is there.

• Attendee: Basics and housing are issues; MTC/CC – to them Bank Head doesn’t exist, no lighting, just get bins emptied.

• Cllr Pratt: tell us what you would like?

• Attendee? Prison owns the estate?

• Tim Kendal: ~Cllrs know same as folk – Community Partnership should be a conduit between developer and the public. Tim has sent 100’s of requests and it was decided not to relay questions and concerns back to the public as they said they ‘didn’t know where the site was going to be.’ They have been aware where it is since 2020. MTC voted to come off Community Partnership and it is under external review. Information been stifled by the Partnership.

• Cllr Pratt: have you not been to public events?

• Chair: events been about giving information from the view of the developer. Sep 2023 community forum with members of public identifying positives and negatives; they promised Impact Report on negatives, still waiting for it. It should be Millom Town Council organising todays event, not me! Someone thanked Jan.

• Cllr Brown: MTC in same boat as everyone. It has to go somewhere – if it is suitable then it has to be here. But hopes it is not suitable.

• Cllr Kelly: before moving to the area I was totally against nuclear, due to problem of waste, but had a change of view because of local dependence on employment . No-one wants it but it isn’t safe where it is, if it has to go somewhere it has to go to the safest place. Two Mid Copeland, one here, one East Lincolnshire. Will have to fight and join together if it does come through, will help folk.

• Attendee: Why here? We already have Sellafield.

• Attendee: No opportunities to ask questions at events organised by NWS.

• Cllr Kelly: have to check public opinion – can only vote when decision to be made . Has to be away from Sellafield and if it’s the safest place then it has to be here.

• Cllr Pratt: Cumberland Council are willing to be in the process

• Cllr Faulkner: spoken to GDF this morning, there is going to be a public meeting held in Haverigg Cricket Club.

• Attendee: Voting: who ask?

• Cllr Kelly: people in the area who are affected.

• Cllr Pratt: Millom Without and Millom.

• Tim Kendal: Simon Hughes, head of NWS siting said people living alongside the GDF; can do that anytime!

• Attendee: they have not identified the host community.

• Cllr Pratt: area needs to be identified before a vote can take place

• Gail Crossman, Bank Head resident, read out the following statement:
“Good afternoon all. My name, for those of you that do not know me, is Gail Crossman and my husband and I live at 58 Bank Head. Due to health issues we need a bungalow and need to live closer to family who already live in the Barrow area.
I sold my late Mum’s house last September within ten days and over the asking price. We have just sold our property but we had to drop our price considerably. The buyer is local and is aware of the GDF plans. However, my husband and I are still against the GDF.
The only people who can stop this are Cumberland Council or the developers – why just these people? Who gave them the right to dictate our house prices and our future? There is talk of a vote. Which areas? In my personal opinion it should just be the areas that are directly impacted on – Kirksanton, Bank Head and any property that received a letter. Thank you for listening.”

• Attendee: process too long – stuck in limbo, selling up is not a realistic option for us, affecting house prices, impact on older people.

• Cllr Pratt: completely agree. Need different compensation scheme.

• Atttendee: land estate agents at a meeting last week knew the house prices would deteriorate, will be devalued, cannot afford to sell at a loss, could we be reassured that they would have to make up any difference in price?

• Gail: still waiting for land agent to get back to her; someone else said the same.

• Attendee: Felt so let down by the lack of information.

• Cllr Kelly: the words ‘directly involved can vote.’

• Attendee: they will not define what that means.

• Attendee: what about landowners – are they part of the scheme

• Cllr Pratt: yes.

• Attendee: could MTC not commission a vote now so they have a mandate now

• Tim Kendal: Whicham did it 18 months ago and 77% were against it. They are still part of the Community Partnership but their representative has an underlying understanding of what parishioners want, MTC could do that. Simon Hughes said Millom doesn’t come into it, people ‘living alongside’ Whicham, Kirksanton, Bank Head. Can make representation to councillors – what steps are the councillors going to take? Next steps?

• Cllr Pratt: will be taking it back.

• Cllr Kelly: will be taking back concerns about land and house prices.

• Attendee: questions at Partnership meetings not answered.

• Angela: land and stables in area of focus – thinking of setting up a small business, what support is around? Who is going to get back to us?

• Attendee: Cllr Kelly is on Planning, Nuclear Services and Executive committees at Cumberland Council, also on Millom Town Council and Community Partnership. He has a lot of influence.

• Cllr Kelly: have access to committees

• Tim Kendal: Seascale Parish Council have rejected their focus area. Councillors have known about this since 2020.

• Attendee: 30 Jan two letters, one to her and another to her husband. We have now appointed ….. [land agent] to contact them. I had to research the company; policies, framework; leaflets explaining what was happening should have been included with letter, not just a website address to look at. Why didn’t all the information come with the letter?

• Cllr Pratt: argued letter should have gone out sooner.

• Attendee: Need to do boreholes.

• Chair, read out proposal that the Haverigg Councillors take the following motion to Millom Town Council: “We, Millom Town Council, reject the area of focus as being beneficial to Bank Head.” A vote was taken and it was unanimously agreed that the Haverigg Councillors should do this.

• Cllr Brown said she would do this but it would not be on the agenda for this next Wednesday’s meeting as it is full and there is no ‘any other business’ so it will be on the March meeting. Various attendees said they would attend the meeting this coming Wednesday and the one in March.

• Chair read out a proposal that the Cumberland Councillors take the following motion to Cumberland Council: “That Cumberland Council exercise their right to withdraw the focus area of Haverigg and Kirksanton from being a proposed site for a GDF.”

• Cllr Kelly said he cannot take it back as he is on the Executive committee. Cllr Pratt said he would find out the appropriate committee to send it to.

• It was also agreed that a survey, using the same wording as Whicham Parish Council had used, would be circulated to residents of Bank Head and nearby only. Some suggested Haverigg but it was pointed out, Millom Town Council should do that as it was a much bigger area than Town Head. In any case, as Simon Hughes had said, it was those people living alongside the proposed site that should have the vote and the Chair pointed out the MP Michelle Scrogham had suggested a survey of those most affected.
Jan to liaise with Gail and others to do the survey.

• It was also noted that there would be a public meeting in March in Kirksanton which folk could attend. This was being organised by Whicham Parish Council!

• The councillors were thanked for coming, as were the attendees.

• The meeting closed at 3 p.m.

• Names and contact details had been taken for many of the participants who want to be kept informed about what is happening.  

WITHDRAWAL OF MILLOM TOWN COUNCIL FROM SOUTH COPELAND GDF COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP

In their minutes of November 2024 MTC said they had withdrawn from the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership and stated:

“MTC has a responsibility to over 7300 residents in Millom & Haverigg to ensure that they are kept informed on the progress of the project and are educated to the potential risks and economic benefits that hosting a GDF could bring to the town. However Public engagement in Millom & Haverigg is currently non existent.”  

QUESTION ASKED AT MTC COUNCIL MEETING JANUARY 29^TH 2025

On the basis of this I attended their next meeting which was not until January 2025, I reminded the councillors of an excellent forum held in September 2023 organised by the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership which identified potential positives and negatives of the GDF being sited here.  I handed out copies of the potential negative effects identified by many local participants at the event.  

I told the Council we had been promised an Impacts Report that would respond to the concerns.  This has never happened. In fact, residents have heard nothing about the potential negative effects from NWS nor Millom Town Council – EVER!

I noted, Councillor Faulkner stated in their November minutes:  

“MTC has a responsibility to over 7300 residents in Millom & Haverigg to ensure that they are kept informed on the progress of the project and are educated to the potential risks [I will just repeat that, educated to the potential risks] and economic benefits that hosting a GDF could bring to the town.  ….”

I then posed the following question:  

How can MTC ensure the potential risks – as identified by the public in September 2023 – will be addressed?”  

The response was not to answer my question but to blame the Community Partnership for the lack of progress.  During the brief discussion which followed, I responded to one of the questions from a councillor about Nuclear Waste Services, saying that you cannot trust what they say, that they tell lies.  The councillor asked me for an example.  I could not reply (as there are too many).  Instead, I sent the following email, dated 30^th January 2025 and asked the clerk to distribute it to each councillor.   

FIRST EMAIL 30^TH JANUARY TO MTC  

At the last meeting of MTC I asked the Council how they would get NWS to respond to the grave concerns expressed by members of the public from Haverigg and Millom at the CP forum of Sep 2023, given that the CP had not managed this in their three years of existence.  

The response was not to answer the question but to blame the CP for the lack of progress.  

NWS have been asked the same questions identified at the Forum over the past three years by various individuals. Their response has been to say they cannot answer them because at that time there was no area of focus.  

That area of focus was identified in 2020 and made public in the Initial Evaluation Report – see point 40 on South Copeland Against the GDF website https://southcopelandagainstgdf.org.uk This has now been confirmed.  

As part of explaining my question I said NWS had lied about many things, to which one of the councillors asked how had they lied? Well, there are nine lies/misinformation identified on https://southcopelandagainstgdf.org.uk and now that NWS have confirmed what they have known all along, that the site near Haverigg is the focus area, that is lie number ten!  

So, perhaps Millom Town Council, as a whole, would like to consider how they are going to ensure the people they are responsible for in Haverigg and Millom are made aware of the serious potential negative effects of hosting a GDF here?  

Because in order to make an informed decision, should it ever come to a vote, the community need to be aware of both the potential negatives as well as the positives.”  

MTC RESPONSE, 7^TH FEBRUARY 2025  

The town clerk responded with the following email, dated 7^th February 2025:

“In response to your email which has been circulated to all councillors please see below:  Millom Town Council (MTC) does not run the GDF programme and has no responsibility for it, any questions you have regarding the work of the Community Partnership or NWS should be directed to them to answer.  What MTC will do going forward is to help disseminate information supplied to us from NWS and where appropriate address the misinformation being disseminated by individuals via social media with factual information.  MTC are fully aware that misinformation continues to be circulated regarding prison closure. We take a dim view of anyone using social media platforms who supports deliberate, frenzied, misconstrued scenarios without substantial evidence.  

I will therefore be writing to the Minister of State for Prisons for confirmation that HMP Haverigg is not at risk of closure due to the GDF programme. Kind regards”   

DID COUNCILLORS DISCUSS MY EMAIL OF 30^TH JANUARY?  DID THEY AGREE THE RESPONSE OF 7^TH FEBRUARY?  

It would appear the councillors did not agree to this email (I checked with one of them) which begs the question whether they even got my previous email of 30^th January or whether they discussed it (unlikely as there has not been a meeting).  So, who wrote the email?  

Here is the draft minute concerning my question from the January Council meeting, mine is the second paragraph:  

 

This bears no resemblance – or very little – about what I said or my question, or their response.  

The Next meeting of MTC is on Wednesday, 26^th February.  There is nothing on the agenda relating to my email or the question I posed.  The meeting should ratify the draft minutes of the meeting held in January.  

Where the hell do you go from here??????????????????      

In response to an email re above and proposed GDF site, here is their response, dated 17th February 2025:

Yes, possible impact on natterjack toads is a concern.

As this is still at the area of search phase it is difficult to decide what any impacts might be, it very much depends if a firm proposal comes forward and what it might actually look like.

The Haverigg sand dunes as the critical area for natterjacks that looks like it might be affected by this is part of the Duddon Estuary SSSI and Morecambe Bay SAC which are the national and international level conservation designations, so if a firm proposal does come forward, there is likely to be a very large amount of environmental impact assessment work to be done before any decisions are made.

Whilst NWS have excluded Giant’s Grave and Lacra from the focus area,they stand next to, or overlook, it and the whole area is steeped in evidence that people lived here in Prehistoric times.

For further information see gdf.pdf.

Residents of Bank Head Estate, Haverigg, have been invited to meet their local Councillors to share their concerns on Saturday, 22nd February, 2 p.m. at St. Luke’s Institute, Haverigg. Haverigg Councillors Faulkner and Brown will be there as well as Cumberland Councillors Pratt and Kelly.

Whicham Parish Council are organising a public meeting in March, venue, date, time, to be confirmed.

At their meeting on Wednesday, 5th February 2025, Whicham Parish Council agreed to organise a public meeting in March and to invite local MP Michelle Scrogham, the leader of Cumberland Council, Mark Fryer, and Ged McGrath, chair of South Copeland GDF Community Partnership.

Meeting of Whicham Parish Council will be held on Wednesday, 4th February, 7.30 p.m. at Kirksanton Village Hall. GDF is an agenda item. Be good for those who live in Kirksanton to go and air their views on the latest regarding siting the GDF in Haverigg/Kirksanton.

NFLA Press Release 4th February 2025

The latest announcement by Nuclear Waste Services making the site of RAF Millom part of the Area of Focus in South Copeland may lead to the airfield and its rich wartime history being lost to a nuclear waste dump.

RAF Millom became operational on 20 January 1941, only days after two Luftwaffe night raids on the locality. Tragically in the first raid, five Millom residents were killed by bombs which missed their intended target, the Millom Ironworks. The base itself came under attack once, when on August 14, 1942, a Junkers 88 bomber strafed the airfield, but caused no damage.

Initially designated as a Bombing and Gunnery School, the airbase was subsequently transformed into an Observer School.

During the war, the following RAF units were stationed at the base: No 1 Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Unit ‘R’ Flight, No 2 Air Observer School, No 2 Bombing and Gunnery School, No 2 (Observers) Advanced Flying Unit, No 14 Air Crew Holding Unit, No 820 Defence Squadron and Station Flight, Millom, whilst 776 and 822 Naval Air Squadrons from the Fleet Air Arm were at one time based there[i].

Aircraft based at RAF Millom included the Boulton Paul Defiant, Hawker Henley, Avro Anson, Airspeed Oxford and Blackburn Botha.

As the base was involved in training aircrew, there were a significant number of crashes, many sadly involving fatalities amongst British, Polish and American airmen[ii][iii].

One of the victims was Flight Lieutenant David Moore Crook, a Battle of Britain ‘Ace’ who had won the Distinguished Flying Cross for his military conduct as one of ‘The Few’. Flt Lt Crook’s DFC citation appeared in the Gazette on 1 November 1940:
“This officer has led his section with coolness and judgment against the enemy on many occasions. He has destroyed six of their aircraft, besides damaging several more”[iv].

Some of the service personnel that were lost are commemorated in a memorial at St Luke’s Church in Haverigg[v].

In locating crashed aircraft and recovering lost aircrews, RAF personnel based at Millom developed operational techniques which were employed by post-war volunteer mountain rescue teams.

Members of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force based at Millom also engaged in a wide variety of support roles from clerical work to welding.

After the war’s end, the airfield was put under care and maintenance until 1953. In that year, it reopened briefly as the home of the No. 1 Officer Cadet Training Unit, but in September this relocated to RAF Jurby on the Isle of Man. Sadly, two aircrew died in an accident associated with the move[vi].The airfield was then again put in care and maintenance until the 1960s when the army used it for basing various army regiments. HMP Haverigg was established on part of the site in 1967.

In 1992, the RAF Millom Aviation & Military Museum was opened on site by enthusiastic volunteers in buildings leased from the Prison Service. Some volunteers notably participated in a Time Team dig in 2005 to excavate a site in Lancashire where two United States Army Air Force bombers had crashed in November 1944 after a mid-air collision[vii]. The museum operated until September 2010 when financial difficulties and the expiry of the lease led to its closure[viii]. Some exhibits remain on display in the Millom Discovery Centre.

Ulverston author John Dixon is a former prison officer at Haverigg. Mr Dixon set up the RAF Millom Collection in 1993 and was the museum’s curator until 2006. He has published a book on ‘The History of RAF Millom and the Genesis of RAF Mountain Rescue’, which can be purchased from Amazon and bookshops:

https://pixeltweakspublications.com/history-raf-millom-genesis-raf-mountain-rescue/[ix]

Within the entrance to the prison, a memorial in remembrance and sacrifice of aircrews at RAF Millom was erected. This is a propellor from an Avro Anson aircraft. Outside the prison, the café has recently been relaunched as the Haverigg Aircrew Mess ‘celebrating the heritage of what was RAF Millom’.

No longer in the sights of the Luftwaffe, RAF Millom is now instead threatened by the plans of Nuclear Waste Services.The recent announcement that the airbase may be the eventual site of a nuclear waste dump makes remembering that heritage even more poignant.

For more information, please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email torichard.outram@manchester.gov.uk