黑洞社区

Energy secretary Ed Davey is to meet the leaders of Copeland and Allerdale councils and local MP Jamie Reed this week to thrash out a deal to proceed with an underground nuclear waste storage facility.

Last week, Copeland and Allerdale district councils voted in favour of taking the next step towards building a facility in their area but Cumbria County Council voted against it 鈥� effectively calling a halt to the process of developing plans for the facility.

The councils were the last group participating in the government鈥檚 Managing Radioactive Waste Safely process, which was designed to find a location for a long-term storage facility through a competition between local authorities.

However, Reed said: 鈥淚鈥檓 a third generation Sellafield worker. I鈥檓 not leaving this for my children to solve. It requires the same kind of consideration as Crossrail and HS2.鈥�

Reed said he wanted there to be a new process for agreeing a site for the dump within a year. But he added: 鈥淭here鈥檚 no reason it cannot be done quicker than that.鈥�

He said he was getting 鈥渆ncouraging鈥� messages from the Department of Energy and Climate change and officials at Number 10 that a solution to the problem could be found.

The stoppage caused by Cumbria鈥檚 no vote means there has been no detailed examination of the geology of the area to establish if it is even suitable for a nuclear waste storage facility.

Leader of Copeland council Elaine Woodburn said she wanted there to be an exploration of the area so she could present the facts to resident in a local referendum.

She added: 鈥淭he problem of nuclear waste does not disappear. No one has driven in and taken it elsewhere - we cannot just hope someone else can find a solution to this.鈥�