Nuclear Free Local Authorities have produced the following press release:
The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities have written to Cumberland Council in response to a consultation on their future Housing Strategy with a warning that the construction of the Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) could lead to a ‘Sizewell C effect’ on housing in Copeland.
Campaigners in Suffolk opposed to a new nuclear plant have attributed a massive rise in the cost of local rented properties to the ‘Sizewell C effect’, with sitting tenants threatened with eviction in favour of lettings to highly paid nuclear construction workers who are better able to pay doubled rents.
Cumberland Council is developing a 15-year Housing Strategy to ‘improve access to affordable housing, bring new housing to the market, improve the condition of housing stock to enable people to live in safe, warm homes and increase health and well-being across Cumberland.’ The Housing Strategy will be adopted by the Council’s Executive in July.
The NFLAs are concerned that the GDF could have a big impact on housing in Mid- or South-Copeland should either area be selected for the development, and that the new Housing Strategy needs to take account of this possibility. Although respondents are asked to submit their views online, we had a lot to say so we sent a letter.
The GDF represents an undersea repository for Britain’s legacy and future high-level radioactive waste; most of this is currently stored at Sellafield. Nuclear Waste Services is responsible for finding a site for the facility. Three ‘Areas of Focus’ in the Mid- and South-Copeland GDF Search Areas are being considered. It will be a massive civil engineering project involving building a surface site to receive regular waste shipments by train and a network of sub-surface tunnels and vaults 200 – 1000 metres beneath the surface. Tunnels will extend out under the seabed up to 22 km from the coast. NWS officials have described it as equivalent to building ‘several Channel Tunnels’. Construction is expected to take at least ten years.
The NFLAs believe that the principal contractor will be a big business with a track record for delivering large-scale civil engineering projects on the international stage. Such a business would have their own specialist workforce, and also approved sub-contractors with their own staff, which they would want to bring with them to site. A large construction workforce migrating into Mid- or South-Copeland would be seeking long-term lettings, or house purchases, whilst they build out a project lasting over a decade.
Where this has previously occurred at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, where a nuclear power plant is under construction, and at Sizewell C in Suffolk, where enabling works are underway in readiness to build a similar plant, rents have risen massively displacing local tenants and buy-to-let speculators have moved in driving out residents wishing to purchase homes in their community. This is what one resident called the ‘Sizewell C effect’.
In his letter to Housing Portfolio Holder, Councillor Emma Williamson, and Director of Adult Social Care and Housing, Chris Jones-King, NFLA Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill has asked the next Housing Strategy to consider the long-term impact of a GDF on the housing market now; to get a grip on the breakdown on its social-housing stock, and unmet demand, in Mid- and South Copeland; and establish a Task and Finish Group specifically to look at the housing challenges presented by the GDF.
The public consultation opened on 14 April and closes on 12 May. Details can be found at https://consult.cumberland.gov.uk/housing-strategy