NFLA 3rd February 2025 press release
Residents living in rural villages in West Cumbria and East Lincolnshire will have been shocked to discover that Nuclear Waste Services has its eye on their backyard as the potential location for Britain’s high-level nuclear waste dump.
For contained amidst the detailed announcements made last week by NWS of that organisation’s plans to conduct more intensive investigations in so-called Areas of Focus in the three GDF Search Areas were revelations that several small villages are now potentially threatened by this huge civil-engineering project.
The Geological Disposal Facility will be the final repository for Britain’s historic and future high-level nuclear waste, including redundant nuclear submarine reactors, spent nuclear fuel, and the world’s largest civil stockpile of deadly plutonium. Nuclear Waste Services is charged with finding a forever site for the GDF that combines ‘suitable’ geology and a ‘willing’ community.
The facility will comprise a surface site approximately 1 km square that shall receive regular shipments of nuclear waste. This waste will be transferred downwards along a sub-surface accessway into a network of deep tunnels located between 400 and 1,000 metres below the seabed. Here the waste will be placed in permanent storage with tunnels sealed up as they are filled. The network of tunnels could be between 20 – 50 kms square in area and extend up to 22 kms out from the coast (the UK territorial limit).
Last week, Nuclear Waste Services published three ‘brochures’, which identified specific Areas of Focus within each Search Area that NWS consider may have potential to locate the surface facility, the accessway, and the tunnel network. NWS intends to conduct more intensive investigations in these areas, seeking official approval at a later stage to carry out deep borehole drilling at those sites deemed to be most geologically promising by NWS.
It is in the South Copeland and Theddlethorpe GDF Search Areas that the chosen Areas of Focus will court controversy.
In South Copeland, NWS has now finally conceded – as the NFLAs and many local Cumbrians have long suspected – that their area of choice is West of Haverigg, incorporating the former RAF airfield and surrounding the prison [Figure 1]. Although Nuclear Waste Services have made much of their efforts to avoid Haverigg and Millom, referencing the provision of a ‘buffer zone’, they have given no similar consideration to the poor residents of Kirksanton, who will find that the Area of Focus comes up to their very doorsteps and, in some sorry instances, incorporates their properties. In so doing NWS have provided for direct access to the railway line.
As the Area of Focus incorporates the former RAF airfield and surrounds the prison, it seems inconceivable that HMP Haverigg would remain open if the GDF surface facility were to be located there, and the two wind farms owned by Thrive Renewables and Windcluster might also be lost[i]. The prison’s closure would impact more than two hundred staff, over 100 of them local, as well as local businesses which supply the prison[ii].
There is at least some consolation for the good people of Drigg, living on the other side of the South Copeland Search Area. Although a parcel of land northeast of the village was identified as being of interest, in recognition that the Low Level (Radioactive) Waste Repository is located nearby it was considered that ‘an Area of Focus so close to the LLW Repository site could potentially impact ongoing operation of the site’. Consequently, NWS are ‘not prioritising it at this stage’, but this is one to watch as this may represent a stay, rather than a commutation, of execution.
In the Theddlethorpe Search Area, a huge bombshell has been dropped on the unsuspecting residents of Great and Little Carlton and Gayton-le-Marsh, as Nuclear Waste Services’ primary focus has moved from the former Theddlethorpe Conoco gas terminal to the fields that lie between these villages [Figure 2]. As the new site is so far inland, NWS are looking at a prospective accessway of considerable length under the King’s National Nature Reserve to the coast [Figure 3].
The current site selection appears worse than the original. Local Theddlethorpe and Withern Ward Councillor Travis Hesketh explains why: “After 4 years NWS have abandoned the 69-acre brownfield former gas terminal site for 250-1000 acres of productive farmland”. The NFLAs look forward to hearing senior Lincolnshire politicians berating the loss of agricultural land to this energy project as they have so readily condemned the encroachment of solar farms and pylons. But we won’t be holding our collective breath!
Also worrying is the illustration used in the accompanying ‘brochure’, a more detailed version of which is used with this media release [Figure 4]. This incorporates a jetty – termed a Marine Off-loading Facility – which suggests that if the Lincolnshire site is chosen, NWS might consider bringing waste shipments to the site by ship from Sellafield as there is no immediate rail station.
This news will have been a tremendous shock to many local people in Cumbria and Lincolnshire for now the threat of a nuclear waste dump suddenly appears writ large. Residents are already up in arms, and doubtless in coming days, there will also be new protest groups formed to represent the people affected.
It is important though to emphasise that the identification of the final site for a GDF is a long way off, is still very uncertain, and that there is still time to organise and fight back! Cllr Hesketh is clear what should happen next: “Residents are well informed and want a vote now. East Lindsey District Council and Lincolnshire County Council promises of a vote by 2027 are worthless as they will be abolished in local government reorganisations.”
As ever the NFLAs as always stands ready to offer advice and support to these new groups, as we continue to work with existing groups which have long campaigned against the GDF.
For more information, please email the NFLA Secretary, Richard Outram, atrichard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Link to diagrams and original release: Threat of nuke dump falls on Cumbrian and Lincolnshire rural communities