The draft minutes for the November meeting of Millom Town Council says:

150/24: SOUTH COPELAND GDF PARTNERSHIP:

Cllr Faulkner raised concerns following the latest South Copeland GDF Partnership meeting where she had attended on behalf of Millom Town Council.

Cllr Falkner’s main concerns were as follows:

MTC have always declared itself neutral in the GDF process and supports the principle set out in the Policy that ultimately it will be the people that decide if they are willing to provide a local solution to a national problem by becoming the host community for a nuclear waste Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).

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.

There is no evidence of engagement with our young people who ultimately will be the generations that will deliver the project if it goes ahead.

The makeup of the partnership does not reflect the community of Millom & Haverigg as the voices that dominate it are from outside of the town.

The poor behaviours of members in meetings have been witnessed by several
councillors who have reported back on an obsession with minutes & documents rather than focusing on actions that benefit the community.

It has been observed that members of the partnership are pushing an agenda of not trusting the developer which undermines the principle of putting the decision making in the hands of the public.

On these grounds of concern Cllr Faulkner proposed a motion that Millom Town Council withdraw from its seat on the South Copeland GDF Partnership, but that Millom Town Council would continue to support the principle of a policy that gives the final decision to the community and will work with NWS to identify how best to engage and educate the people of Millom and Haverigg as the project develops. Cllr Faulkner proposed that a letter to be sent to NWS confirming this withdrawal.

A debate followed with councillors expressing their individual opinions and concerns about withdrawing from the partnership.

Cllr McDonald seconded Cllr Faulkner’s motion and the Chair then asked the councillors for a vote, it this was agreed by all councillors to do this: The following vote result was as follows: 9 members voted to withdraw, 1 vote to remain and 1 abstention. Therefore, the motion was unanimously carried. Action: Clerk to write letter to NWS to withdraw Millom Town Council from the South Copeland GDF Partnership on the above
grounds.

COMMENT: Given the Community Partnership has ignored the repeated concerns raised by locals it will be interesting to see if Millom Town Council continues to ignore them or if they will do anything about them. Members of the public who attended the Community Forum back in 2023 came up with comprehensive lists of their concerns – most of which have been ignored by NWS.

It will be interesting to see if anything comes up at their next meeting, Wednesday, 29th January, 7 pm at the Methodist Hall, Millom.

Nuclear Free Local Authorities: 16th January 2025

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities have urged Nuclear Waste Services and the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership to ask the residents of Millom and Haverigg for help in identifying local sites which have been flooded.

As part of its ongoing effort to locate a potential site for a Geological Disposal Facility, a repository into which Britain’s legacy and future high-level radioactive waste will be dumped, NWS intends to identity ‘Areas of Focus’ in the South Copeland Search Area which incorporates the communities of Drigg, Haverigg, Kirksanton, and Millom. These ‘Areas of Focus’ will be subject to more intensive geological investigations and in the guidance published by NWS those sites ‘with known flood risks’ will be excluded.

Following devastating local flooding in September 2017, then Cumbria County Council investigated the circumstances and the causes which ‘gathered information from affected residents by means of site visits and a flood forum where members of the public provided information’. Based on this knowledge a comprehensive report was published in the following year.

Over 1,000 local people were affected by the flooding, which damaged almost 300 homes and commercial properties. Many impacted residents joined the Millom and Haverigg Flood Action Group. The group maintains a Facebook page, with 329 current members.

In a detailed letter to the Chair of the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership and the Siting and Communities Director of NWS, NFLA Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill suggests that ‘it would be prudent and proper for NWS and the CP to consult with the group to help determine those parts of the Search Area which should be excluded as Areas of Focus because they are impacted by flooding.’

This is the second time that Councillor O’Neill has urged the Community Partnership and NWS to confer with local people who are passionate about their community.

In an earlier letter, he asked the two parties to ‘consult with the Millom and District Local History Society on the boundaries of the Area(s) of Search to ensure that no local heritage site will be compromised’.

Many readers will have seen this week’s edition of Digging for Britain shown on BBC 2 with coverage of the efforts of the Society in discovering and uncovering some of the many important heritage sites in the Millom area. In the second programme of the latest series, Professor Alice Roberts met with Society members to talk about their amazing finds. The programme can still be seen on BBC I-Player at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014hl0d

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

NFLA media release, 16 January 2025

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities have urged Nuclear Waste Services and the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership to ask the residents of Millom and Haverigg for help in identifying local sites which have been flooded.

As part of its ongoing effort to locate a potential site for a Geological Disposal Facility, a repository into which Britain’s legacy and future high-level radioactive waste will be dumped, NWS intends to identity ‘Areas of Focus’ in the South Copeland Search Area which incorporates the communities of Drigg, Haverigg, Kirksanton, and Millom. These ‘Areas of Focus’ will be subject to more intensive geological investigations and in the guidance published by NWS those sites ‘with known flood risks’ will be excluded.

Following devastating local flooding in September 2017, then Cumbria County Council investigated the circumstances and the causes which ‘gathered information from affected residents by means of site visits and a flood forum where members of the public provided information’. Based on this knowledge a comprehensive report was published in the following year.

Over 1,000 local people were affected by the flooding, which damaged almost 300 homes and commercial properties. Many impacted residents joined the Millom and Haverigg Flood Action Group. The group maintains a Facebook page, with 329 current members.

In a detailed letter to the Chair of the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership and the Siting and Communities Director of NWS, NFLA Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill suggests that ‘it would be prudent and proper for NWS and the CP to consult with the group to help determine those parts
of the Search Area which should be excluded as Areas of Focus because they are impacted by flooding.

This is the second time that Councillor O’Neill has urged the Community Partnership and NWS to confer with local people who are passionate about their community.

In an earlier letter, he asked the two parties to ‘consult with the Millom and District Local History Society on the boundaries of the Area(s) of Search to ensure that no local heritage site will be compromised.

Many readers will have seen this week’s edition of Digging for Britain shown on BBC 2 with coverage of the efforts of the Society in discovering and uncovering some of the many important heritage sites in the Millom area. In the second programme of the latest series, Professor Alice Roberts met with Society members to talk about their amazing finds. The programme can still be seen on BBC IPlayer at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014hl0d

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

Nuclear Free Local Authorities Press Release, 8th January 2025

Standing alongside the perimeter of the old RAF Millom are eight wind turbines generating clean energy for the nation, and the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities fear they may be threatened by the latest plans to bring a nuclear waste dump to Haverigg and Millom.

A private company with fifty shareholders, Windcluster, owns and operates four of the turbines, whilst the remainder are run by Thrive Renewables, which has over seven thousand investors.

Windcluster was established in 1988 as a private company. The company first installed five 225 Kw Vestas V27 turbines near the abandoned airfield. This Haverigg I project was a groundbreaker being only the second commercial wind project in the UK. Commissioned on 5 August 1992, it was formally opened that December by Environment Minister, David Maclean MP, at a ceremony hosted by the Haverigg Primary School. Windcluster has continued its relationship with the school, having established a community fund to sponsor its activities.

The V27 turbines were dismantled in 2004 and replaced in 2005 by four larger V52 turbines, with a total rating of 3.4 MW, as the Haverigg III project. This had an expected generating lifespan of 20 years; however, after 15 years, the company secured permission from the landlord, the Craghill family, and from the planning authority, Copeland Council, to continue operations until 2040.

Alongside Haverigg I, Windcluster secured consents to install four more wind turbines on the airfield. Initially financed and developed by The Wind Company UK Ltd and The Wind Fund, this Haverigg II project was brought online by the end of July 1998. This is now owned outright by Thrive Renewables. Haverigg II is equipped with four Wind World W4200 turbines, with a generating capacity of 2.4 GW. Thrive has also developed a Community Benefit Programme which has awarded energy-efficiency grants to the Millom Baptist Church and Kirksanton Village Hall. Like the Windcluster project, Thrive has secured permissions to extend its operations to 2032.

Together the two wind projects generate enough renewable electricity, approximately 16 GW annually, to power around 4,100 homes. Windcluster has published an estimate that Haverigg II saves 4,430 tons of CO2 per year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 443 people in the UK. The smaller Thrive project will save an additional two-thirds of that.

Nuclear Waste Services are now looking to identify ‘Areas of Focus’ in each of the three Search Areas where investigations are ongoing to find a prospective site for a surface facility for the Geological Disposal Facility that would receive regular shipments of high-level radioactive waste from Sellafield.

In each ‘Area of Focus’ NWS will conduct ‘further investigative and technical studies’. The NFLAs have been advised by Simon Hughes, NWS Siting and Communities Director, that ‘NWS will publish an update on Areas of Focus early next year, and the community engagement teams will be out in the community to explain our findings, listen to their feedback, and consider next steps’.

The NFLAs have already written to NWS to request that the major local employer, HMP Haverigg, and tourist and heritage sites be excluded from consideration in the South Copeland Search Area.

As supporters of renewable energy generation, we are also worried that the future of these wind turbines might also be jeopardised if the site is selected as an ‘Area of Focus’, and becomes subject to intrusive borehole investigations in the future.

This is not the first time the turbines have been threatened by a nuclear project.

In 2009, German utility giant RWE Npower unveiled plans to develop a nuclear power station in nearby Kirksanton, which would have resulted in their destruction.  A company spokesperson publicly declared that the wind turbines: ‘could not work alongside a new nuclear power station’.

The threat extended to the neighbouring prison. The North-West Evening Mail reported on 17th November 2009 that: ‘A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change told the Evening Mail that the prison would not stand in the way of the nuclear plant should other key elements needed to support a plant, such as transport and infrastructure fall into place.’

Local people who objected to the plan formed the Kirksanton Action Group and fortunately the threat passed.

The NFLAs have written to Windcluster and Thrive with a briefing on the situation, to outline our concerns, and to suggest they may wish to make representations on the issue to NWS.

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

Nuclear Free Local Authorities Press Release, 7th January 2025

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities fear the siting of a Geological Disposal Facility in the South Copeland Search Area could lead to irrecoverable damage to the tourist economy and the loss of many local jobs.

Local campaigners in Millom and District against the Nuclear Dump have always been aware of this possibility. One of their first posters in a nod to Fifties tourism flyers urged visitors to ‘Come holiday at Britain’s first nuclear waste dump’, with the tagline ‘Its radiant’.

The most recent statistical analysis published by Cumbria Tourism shows that day trippers and holidaymakers brought in almost £300 million in annual revenue to South-West Cumbrian coastal resorts, helping to sustain over 2,300 full-time jobs.

Industry experts, Global Tourism Solutions, developed the STEAM (Scarborough Tourism Economic Activity Monitor) to collect and contextualise data about the performance and impact of the tourist economy. As the company’s website puts it:

STEAM quantifies the local economic impact of tourism, from both staying and day visitors, through analysis and use of a variety of inputs including visitor attraction numbers, tourist accommodation bed-stock, events attendance, occupancy levels, accommodation tariffs, macroeconomic factors, visitor expenditure levels, transport use levels and tourism-specific economic multipliers.’[i]

GTS was commissioned by Cumbria Tourism to collate and catalogue the data for the local tourism economy in 2023. The findings are summarised for each of the three former District Councils (Allerdale, Carlisle and Copeland), which were subsumed into a new unitary authority, Cumberland Council. Drigg, Haverigg, Kirksanton, and Millom, comprising the South Copeland GDF Search Area, were previously administered by Copeland Council.

The published figures for Copeland estimate that in 2023, tourism generated £296 million in revenue for the local economy sustaining the equivalent of 2,352 FTE jobs.[ii] The number of local people employed in tourist related jobs will however be much higher as many of these posts will be part-time and seasonal. There are also more jobs in-directly sustained by tourism.

Interestingly, 48% of this revenue came from just the 17% of tourists who were ‘staying visitors’, those who stayed at least one night, with the remainder coming from the 83% who are ‘day trippers’. This demonstrates that overnight guests spend much more, making it an imperative to provide attractive holiday accommodation options to maximise revenue in the local economy.

The construction of a Geological Disposal Facility would be a huge civil engineering and mining project that will be massively disruptive to any small community. Construction would take at least ten years, creating a surface site measuring one kilometre square and a labyrinthine complex of tunnels. Completion would be followed by regular shipments of high-level radioactive waste to site. These shipments could last for more than one hundred and fifty years. Waste will be taken below ground and deposited in the tunnels which would extend out beneath the bed of the Irish Sea. It has been estimated that ten million cubic metres of rock will have to excavated during construction to create the tunnels. On the conclusion of operations, the site will be sealed and cleared.

Would tourists really want to come to any seaside town blighted by a project reportedly compared by one Nuclear Waste Services official in a public event as the equivalent of ‘building another Channel Tunnel’, with the subsequent shipments forever associating that town with toxic radioactive waste?

That was the question residents in a seaside town on the East coast of England also under threat from the GDF wanted the answer to, so they carried out a survey to find the answer.

In coastal Lincolnshire, Nuclear Waste Services have established the Theddlethorpe Search Area to investigate the prospects for siting the GDF there, with the radioactive waste stored beneath the North Sea. The Search Area takes in the picturesque seaside town of Mablethorpe, habitually visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

Activists in the Guardians of the East Coast, a campaign group opposed to the GDF plan, surveyed over 1,000 of these visitors and found that 83% would be deterred from returning if they found they were sunning themselves in a resort that was home to the dump.

If translated into cold hard cash such a downturn in the tourist economy would be devastating, with a prediction that Mablethorpe and neighbouring Skegness could lose £250 million per annum alongside 3,000 jobs.[iii]

Frighteningly, an 83% reduction in tourism in the Copeland area would have a similar effect. £250 million annual income would also be lost and around 2,000 FTE jobs placed in jeopardy.

But hosting a GDF in Haverigg and Millom would land two further blows on the local tourist economy.

The construction of a GDF would require specialist contractors with proven abilities in civil engineering and tunnelling; they in turn will employ their own trusted sub-contractors. Such firms do not exist in small towns such as Haverigg and Millom, and consequently a construction workforce numbering hundreds will be brought on site. Where will they live whilst working on a project lasting a decade? Some will commute from out of area, but it is likely that many will take up places in local tourist accommodation driving away the tourists, whilst other will take up long-term rental properties outpricing local people. Possibly, as has happened in the construction of Hinkley Point C nuclear power project, a local holiday camp might be commandeered for the purpose.

In Somerset, French nuclear power operator EDF Energy acquired the former Brean Sands holiday camp from Pontins. Instead of housing 3,000 holidaymakers’ week on week, the 900 chalets are now occupied by Hinkley Point C construction workers. At the time of the acquisition, EDF expressed aspirations that the workers would spend their money when off-duty in the local economy; however, rather than experiencing a boom time, local tourist operators have instead felt the pinch.

Alan House, head of local tourist association Discover Brean, told local media that surveys of its members had revealed that some local businesses have lost between 30 and 50 per cent of their revenue ‘because of the lack of footfall coming from the Pontins site’. Rather than the trend of holidaymakers to spend money on local attractions and in local shops and pubs, Mr House said that the workers are ‘predominantly staying inside the camp and cooking in their self-catered chalets, bringing their supplies in with them from supermarkets outside the local Brean economy.’[iv]

Hosting a GDF in South Copeland would also be completely illogical as it would negate the benefits that are expected to accrue to the local tourist economy from a £30 million investment in infrastructure that will be made in coming years. For the Millom Town Fund Board secured £20.6 million from the UK Government’s Towns Fund, paired with £8.7 million in match funding [v]. This was preceded by an investment of £500,000 in immediate Covid-19 recovery funding[vi].

This investment of almost £30 million will deliver a variety of key projects including: the Iron Line project to celebrate Millom’s industrial heritage with the creation of a visitor centre; revitalising and repurposing town centre buildings; building new leisure facilities; improving Millom Railway Station and local roads, cycleways, and footpaths; and creating a trail to celebrate the work of local poet Norman Nicholson.

The stated aims of this investment are ‘to help maximise inclusive economic growth and better connectivity for the area while developing a welcoming arts, culture and tourism offer, thriving independent businesses and healthy, active people’.[vii]

In the ‘Destination Management Plan’ published in July 2024 by Cumbria Tourism and its partners, including Cumberland Council, the primary Growth Priority 1A is identified as ‘Continu[ing] to implement the strategy to raise the appeal and awareness of less well-known and visited parts of the county’.

The report says that ‘For many years Cumbria has followed an “attract and disperse” strategy to try and increase visitor activity and increase the share of visitor value and wider benefits in less well-known and visited parts of the county. The DMP is intended to redouble and refocus efforts on this strategy. The focus is about encouraging both day and overnight visitors to discover, visit and spend time and money in less well-known locations as well’.

The West Coast is listed as one of the ‘less well-known and visited’ areas and this is evidenced by the Online Visitor Survey conducted in 2022 by Cumbria Tourism in which less than 2% of the 1,766 respondents said they had visited Millom.[viii]

In Town Fund documentation, it is optimistically estimated that 100,000 additional visitors will be attracted to the area, providing a significant uplift in income for the local community – but how many will come if their enjoyment is inevitably spoilt by sharing a space with the noisy building work, frenetic construction traffic, and the mountainous spoil heap caused by a GDF?

[i]https://www.globaltourismsolutions.co.uk/steam-model/

[ii]  Full Time Equivalent – FTE[iii]https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/almost-250-million-per-year-and-over-3000-jobs-lost-is-this-the-threat-posed-to-tourism-in-east-lincolnshire-by-a-nuclear-waste-dump/[iv]https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/local-news/edf-using-pontins-brean-sands-9012870[v]https://millomtowndeal.org.uk/[vi]https://www.copeland.gov.uk/node/45097[vii]https://www.copeland.gov.uk/towns-fund-millom[viii]https://www.cumbriatourism.org/resources/destination-management-plan/ 

End://..For more information, please contact NFLA Secretary, Richard Outram, by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk

NFLA media release, 7 Aug 2024, For immediate use

Over two hundred jobs may be lost if Haverigg jail is displaced by nuclear dump 

Whilst Nuclear Waste Services are keen to promote the number of jobs that might be created by the establishment of a Geological Disposal Facility in West Cumbria, there is less clarity when it comes to identifying the number of jobs that might be lost.  

The GDF will be the final resting place for the UK’s current and future high-level nuclear waste. Investigations are underway to identify potential sites in either Mid or South Copeland in West Cumbria, and in Theddlethorpe in Lincolnshire. A GDF would require a surface receiving station of around 1 sq KM, to which regular nuclear waste shipments would be made prior to the waste being moved underground and then pushed out along deep tunnels beneath the seabed.  

In Theddlethorpe, a specific site, a former gas terminal, has been identified as the potential hub for a receiving station, but this has so far not been the case in Copeland. One major constraint in the South Copeland Search Area is that it mostly comprises the Lake District National Park and the proposed Southern Boundary Extension which are rightly ‘excluded from consideration’. Consequently, any GDF development  would have to be confined to small areas around Drigg, Haverigg and Millom, and for many months there has been speculation that one potential site by the coast might be the location of HMP Haverigg.  

Mindful that a GDF would most likely mean the closure of the jail, NFLA Secretary Richard Outram sent several Freedom of Information requests to the Ministry of Justice exploring the impact of the closure of the prison in these circumstances. The NFLAs are particularly keen to identify how many local jobs could be lost, as well as ascertaining the impact on local contractors and suppliers engaged in business with HMP Haverigg. There is also the less quantifiable contribution made by prisoners carrying out work within the local community and the positive impact of the training and support provided by prison staff and support agencies in reducing recidivism and turning around the lives of inmates to enable them to reenter society.  

On jobs, Ministry of Justice officials were unable to supply all of the information requested, but advised that they employ a total of 206 full-time (80%) and part-time (20%) staff, both operational (prison officers) and non-operational (ancillary roles). Of these over half, 110, reside in the local LL18 postal district. However this excludes the number of staff engaged at this prison who are employed by other agencies, such as the local and regional NHS, and it was surprising to learn that ‘there is no legal requirement for MoJ to collate data relating to contractors and suppliers that work at HMP Haverigg’ so it is impossible to make a determination as to the dependence of the local supply chain on business with the prison.  

On rates of recidivism, Ministry officials did not supply any specifics for the prison but instead referenced the latest national available statistics[i]. However, in a report which followed an unscheduled prison visit by inspectors in May 2021, it was recognised by HM Chief Inspector Charlie Taylor that Haverigg, in providing specialist accommodation and rehabilitation to older male sex offenders, ‘is fast becoming a very capable establishment and is progressing to a point where it soon may well be one of the better open prisons in the estate.’  It was notable that ‘All eligible prisoners had some form of purposeful activity…The employment hub was a particularly helpful service for prisoners’ and that ‘Prisoners benefited from a high standard of technical training. They developed significant new skills, knowledge and behaviours through vocational training.’[ii]  

UK Government advice on the prison record that: ‘All prisoners work or train full time at Haverigg. Training and learning opportunities are focused on skills gaps in the job market and designed to improve prisoners’ chances of getting work on release. Professions include timber manufacturing, building, plastering, plumbing, industrial cleaning and agriculture. Prisoners can also train and work towards qualifications in the leisure industry through the gym’.[iii]

On community activities, Ministry officials advised that prisoners are engaged in litter picking and landscaping which has ‘received positive feedback from various community members for their impact on the local area’. The prison also holds a weekly market in Millom to promote the products made by HMP Haverigg, which has ‘significantly contributed to fostering strong relationships between the prison and the community’. Additionally, prisoners also support the local churches by maintaining church yards.

Ends://…For more information, please contact Richard Outram, NFLA Secretary by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk or by mobile phone on 07583 097793

---

[i]https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-statistics-april-to-june-2022/proven-reoffending-statistics-april-to-june-2022[ii]https://hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_reports/hmp-haverigg/[iii]https://www.gov.uk/guidance/haverigg-prison

Ends://…For more information, please contact Richard Outram, NFLA Secretary by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk or by mobile phone on 07583 097793

---

According to the latest survey conducted by Yonder the percentage of people who now support a GDF in our area has risen significantly to 50%. Why is this? First of all, it is partly because Drigg and Carleton are now in South Copeland. Secondly, we have had two years of drip-drip propaganda. Thirdly, we have had two years worth of bribery. Fourthly, they are purposefully hiding where the site will be when at the beginning of the process it was acknowledged it would be in Haverigg and Kirksanton. And fifthly, there has been no acknowledgement of the potential negatives. So Millom Town Council and the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership can be proud of what they have managed to achieve!

BBC News have published an article acknowledging that Whicham Parish Council conducted a survey of local residents and found 70% are opposed to a nuclear dump being sited in their area (Haverigg/Kirksanton).

Someone in South Holderness https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-68082963?fbclid=IwAR0Ba1H2hlX3FSfI0VyEbS2WYS9cR-xmIPk1J8_XKBWDl9J88cOYKePMPBg proposed the area as a potential site for the GDF. However, within a matter of weeks the leading authority East Riding of Yorkshire Council withdrew from the process. And that is a Tory led Council! Would that Cumberland Council (Labour led) would follow suit.

In a recent press release, Nuclear Free Local Authorities, which has members from 40 local authorities in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, is urging Millom Town Council and other relevant Parish Councils to follow the lead of Whicham Parish Council and ask their constituents if they are for or against a GDF being sited in their area.

NFLA English Chair, Councillor David Blackburn, explained: “Councillors everywhere stand for office in the expectation that they will faithfully serve their community and reflect their constituents’ views. At the most local level of government, parish or town councils, the Councillor will be resident in and a member of that community, and their decisions will have a direct impact of their own lives and those of their neighbours, friends and family members, who are also their voters.“

The GDF will represent a massive long-term construction and engineering undertaking, having been compared to the building of the Channel Tunnel. A GDF would take at least ten years to build and would be accepting packages of high-level radioactive waste for over a century, before the tunnels are backfilled and sealed, and the surface facility removed. It would be hugely disruptive to any small community, impacting the quality of life of local residents for generations and damaging the environment.“

In January of this year, Whicham commendably sent out a questionnaire to all of its parishioners asking if they were in favour of, or opposed, the GDF. Around 400 questionnaires were returned by post from about two thirds of those households who received the questionnaire. 300 were opposed to the plan at that point, a clear indication that Whicham was an ‘unwilling’ community.“

Whicham’s representative on the Community Partnership can now act in the near future with the knowledge that their constituents’ views have been polled and we hope that other local Councils will want to follow their lead and also conduct opinion polling. This should be an iterative process and we believe that such polls should be repeated from time-to-time to allow local Councillors to continue to take the pulse of their community on this, the most contentious of local issues.”

In response, Millom Town Council have agreed to add it to their agenda for their next meeting which is likely to be on Wednesday, 31st January 2024 (as they do not meet in December). Town Council meetings are usually held on the last Wednesday of the month and are held at the Council Offices, 6 Newton Street, Millom and start at 7 p.m. So if you think we who live in Millom and Haverigg should be asked if we are for or against a GDF being sited in our area, make Millom Town Councillors know by attending the meeting.