Many thanks to Nuclear Free Local Authorities for this Deep Dive ......
No more buckets and spades – would nuke dump end West Cumbrian tourism?
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?
End://..For more information, please contact NFLA Secretary, Richard Outram, by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
[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/
NFLA media release, 6 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
The media release also appears on the NFLA website at:https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/over-two-hundred-jobs-may-be-lost-if-haverigg-jail-is-displaced-by-nuclear-dump/
Notes to Editors
The Freedom of Information requests and responses trail (first to last)
First FOI request emailed to Ministry of Justice 6 May 2024
Dear HMP Service,
I wish to make an enquiry under the FOI Act.
I would like to ask please:
How many full-time and part-time employees are employed at HMP Haverigg, as Prison Officers or in ancillary roles, all grades, all roles?
How many full-time and part-time people are employed by HMP Haverigg who live in the postal district LA18 (Haverigg and Millom)?
How many contractors and suppliers from the LA18 postcode support the work of the prison?
If you can provide rates of recidivism for offenders leaving HMP Haverigg as opposed to other of His Majesty’s Prisons? If better than average delighted to hear this.
Are there any particular examples of positive activities that prisoners from HMP Haverigg have engaged in that support the local LA18 community?
Many thanks. I look forward to your response
Thank you
Richard Outram, NFLAs Secretary
First FOI response from the Ministry of Justice dated 4 June 2024
Dear Richard Outram
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request – 240506002
Thank you for your request received 6 May in which you asked for the following information from the Ministry of Justice (MOJ):
[reiteration of questions from original request].
Your request is being handled under the FOIA.
We have considered your request for information, but we are unable to answer it without further clarification. Section 1(3) of the FOIA does not oblige us to answer requests where we require further clarification to identify and locate the information requested.
You may find it helpful to know that directly employed staff at HMPPS work with a number of partners including NHS commissioned staff and other parties. So that we provide you with the right information for questions 1 and 2, are you asking for this information specific to HMPPS staff who work in prisons?
On receipt of this information, we will continue to process your request.
Yours sincerely
[Name redacted by NFLAs]
HM Prison and Probation Service Briefing and Correspondence Team
Second FOI request sent to Ministry of Justice 4 June 2024
Dear HMPPS Correspondence Team,
In answer to your question the answer is YES in response to Question 1 and 2.
Thanks
Essentially asking MoJ to send details of HMPPS staff – ideally the NFLAs would have liked details of all staff incl. NHS commissioned staff and other parties by MoJ seem unable to supply this.
Second FOI response from the Ministry of Justice dated 1 July 2024
Dear Richard Outram
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request – 240604029
Thank you for your request received 4 June in which you clarified for questions 1 and 2 of your FOI request, you require information specific to HMPPS staff who work in prisons.
Your reference, your original request was:
[reiteration of questions from original request].
Your request is being handled under the FOIA.
We have considered your request for information, but we are unable to answer it without further clarification. Section 1(3) of the FOIA does not oblige us to answer requests where we require further clarification to identify and locate the information requested.
So that we provide you with the right information for question 4, please can you provide a timeframe for the period in which you require this data for. On receipt of this information, we will continue to process your request.
Outside of the act and on a discretionary basis, the Proven Reoffending statistics by Local Authority or Probation Region can be accessed via the following link:
Yours sincerely,
[Name redacted by NFLAs]
HM Prison and Probation Service Briefing and Correspondence Team
Third FOI request emailed to Ministry of Justice 1 July 2024
Dear K Durham,
Please remove my request for information under Question 4. I shall examine the link you kindly sent me.
I am assuming you will now be in a position to respond to Questions 1, 2, 3 and 5 based on clarification previously supplied on Questions 1 and 2?
Thank you.
Third FOI response from the Ministry of Justice dated 30 July 2024
Dear Richard Outram
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request – 240701017
Thank you for your request of 1 July in which your removed question 4 from your previous request (240604029).
[reiteration of questions 1, 2, 3 and 5 from original request].
Your request has been handled under the FOIA.
I can confirm that the MOJ holds the some of information that you have requested.
However, the MOJ does not hold any information in relation to question 3 of your request. This is because there is no legal requirement for MoJ to collate data relating to contractors and suppliers that work at HMP Haverigg. This responsibility lies with the contractor / supplier.
The FOIA does not oblige a public authority to create information to answer a request if the requested information is not held. The duty is to only provide the recorded information held.
Additionally, in relation to question 5, this cannot be answered by the provision of recorded information, it is not possible to handle it under the Freedom of Information Act.
It may be helpful if I explain that the FOIA gives individuals and organisations the right of access to all types of recorded information held, at the time the request is received, by public authorities such as the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Section 84 of the FOIA states that in order for a request for information to be handled as a FOI request, it must be for recorded information. ‘Recorded information’ includes printed 2 documents, computer files, letters, emails, photographs, and sound or video recordings.
The FOIA does not cover information that is in someone’s head. For example, a FOI request would be for a copy of a policy, rather than an explanation as to why we have that policy in place, or actions that have taken place as a result. On occasion, the MoJ receives requests that do not ask for recorded information, but ask more general questions about, for example, a policy, opinion, action, or a decision. When this is the case, we respond as official correspondence rather than as a FOI request. You can find further details at the ICO website.
For the avoidance of doubt, we are responding to question 5 of your enquiry as official correspondence.
I have provided the information for questions 1 and 2 below.
Outside of the FOIA, and in relation to question 5 of your request, prisoners at HMP Haverigg work with the local council in Millom and Haverigg, engaging in activities such as gardening, litter picking, and landscaping outside of their official duties. These initiatives have received positive feedback from various community members for their impact on the local area. Moreover, the prison 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 from HMP Haverigg also support the local churches by taking care of the church yards to ensure they are well-maintained.
Sent by
Richard Outram, BA (Hons),
Secretary, UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities and
Secretary, UK/Ireland Mayors for Peace Chapter,
C/o City Policy, Manchester City Council
Mobile: +44 (0) 7583 097793
[i] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-statistics-april-to-june-2022/proven-reoffending-statistics-april-to-june-2022
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