Nuclear Waste Services have "revealed" their "Areas of Focus" for Mid-Copeland and South Copeland along with Lincolnshire.
This is not so much of a reveal as now being more upfront with the maps which were previously obtuse so as not to scare the horses grazing happily on premium hay courtesy of the "bribes". Nuclear Free Local Authorities have produced a press release below which assumes that "Drigg has been spared" at least for now. This is, we believe, exactly what Nuclear Waste Services want folk to think. The reality is that Drigg is being eyed up for for so called "Near Surface Disposal" 10s of metres below ground for Intermediate Level Wastes, these are the wastes that were refused at the NIREX inquiry for a dump 1000 metres below ground. The inquiry with dozens of geologists and scientists found the wastes would percolate to the surface faster than the nuclear industry had forecast. At 10s of metres below ground the rate of percolation would be even faster!
Mark Kirkbride (the coal mine boss) has produced costings for the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management/Nuclear Decommissioning Authority for the "co-disposal" of Intermediate and High Level nuclear wastes. This would involve a dump for Intermediate Level Wastes underground with the above ground sprawl and drift tunnels also being used to access a sub-sea Geological Disposal Facility.
"Exploratory" boreholes have already been drilled for "Near Surface Disposal" of Intermediate Level Wastes at Drigg. The "tandem" plan to "co-locate" a Near Surface Disposal Facility for Intermediate Level Nuclear Wastes which would be fully delivered in 10 years ie within the lifetimes of many of the people within the so called Community Partnerships now. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority have stated in their 2020 position paper on Near Surface Disposal that "The assessment of disposal costs has been made on the assumption that a nearer- surface disposal facility ..would be co-located with a GDF.” Lakes Against Nuclear Dump say that “Drigg would be the politically expedient choice for co-location given that the community has already been in receipt of decades worth of funding for the ongoing blight caused by hosting the Low Level Waste Repository.”
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At a GDF drop in event at Drigg we were told that "the Near Surface Disposal Plan for Intermediate Level Wastes has nothing to do with a GDF." Mmmm Rather like the hot plutonium now nonchalantly earmarked for a GDF? Boy does this industry love mission creep. Our report on the shifting sands of nuclear waste dumping is here outlining the Drigg plan
Here are the newly released "Areas of Focus" with Drigg being "spared" - yeah right we believe you. No area is safe - the only sane response is to oppose a geological disposal facility aka deep hot nuclear dump anywhere - all would be impacted.
The following press release is from Nuclear Free Local Authorities who have given a good summary of Nuclear Waste Services "Areas of Focus," the veil is slipping. The "Areas of Focus" are for the surface nuclear sprawl which would blight towns and villages on the Lake District coast but not within the National Park (the National Park would of course be blighted but the Lake District NP is not an "Area of Focus"). For this intergenerational toxic blight there is proposed a single "Test of Public Support" for a limited area and excluding the wider region for what would be the biggest and most dangerous infrastructure project in the UK. Nuclear Waste Services want to give the impression that "Drigg has been spared" - but we say buyer beware - Drigg may be the gateway to GDF via so called Near Surface Disposal of the high end of Intermediate Level Wastes 10s of meters below ground. The only sane response is to oppose this plan.
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Nuclear Free Local Authorities 3rd February 2025
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, at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Notes:
Existing groups opposed to a GDF are:
Cumbria:
LAND (Lakes against the Nuclear Dump) https://www.lakesagainstnucleardump.com/
South Copeland against the GDF / Millom and District against the Dump https://southcopelandagainstgdf.org.uk/
Lincolnshire:
GOTEC (Guardians of the East Coast) https://www.gotec.org.uk/
The NFLA website also contains a great many articles about the GDF: https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/
Fig 1, Surface (dark green) /Accessway (hatched) Areas of Focus – South Copeland GDF.
Fig 2, Surface (dark green) / Accessway (light green) Areas of Focus – Theddlethorpe GDF.
Fig 3, Surface Area of Focus (green) in detail – Theddlethorpe GDF.
Fig 4, An illustrative example of a GDF[iii].
[i] https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/is-the-haverigg-wind-project-once-more-under-a-nuclear-threat/
[iii] Although waste shipments would generally be expected to be transferred from Sellafield by train to the GDF site, the inclusion of a jetty suggests that marine movements might also be considered where no railway exists.
"The assessment of disposal costs has been made on the assumption that a nearer- surface disposal facility ..would be co-located with a GDF.” Nuclear Decommissioning Authority