Ed Miliband could change the law to allow him to dump nuclear waste near countryside communities without their consent. Currently, residents in a ‘Potential Host Community’ are given a vote on whether or not to accept a Geological Disposal Facility near them, after other rounds of consultation and council involvement.
However Mr Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is eyeing scrapping this stage of the consultation process in order to force through new disposal facilities. The GDFs consist of a huge mine-like network of tunnels, which extend under the sea and are used to store the used-up fuel from nuclear power plants. Despite Mr Miliband insisting that new nuclear power stations are “essential for energy security, good jobs, lower bills and climate action”, Britain currently has no permanent site for storing the spent radioactive waste that would result from a more intensive nuclear energy programme.
The Government has been searching for sites to host the required disposal projects, however opposition from both residents and councils has hampered efforts.
East Lindsey, Lincolnshire, South Holderness in East Yorkshire, and Cumbria have all been explored as potential locations.
However both Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire have already pulled out of talks with the body responsible for delivering GDFs.
The Telegraph reports that civil servants at DESNZ are reviewing the ‘Test of Public Support’ policy in light of the ‘NIMBY’ resistance.
A departmental source said: “There’s a review going on of how the whole policy works – every option is being looked at again.
“The policy currently says there has to be a vote in each area before anything can go ahead and that local authorities can effectively veto proposals as well.
“Now there are conversations about whether you need to prioritise other things, like which area has the best geology. This is a national infrastructure project and it has to be driven centrally.”
A spokesman for the department said: “Our position continues to be that any potential geological disposal facility site will be subject to agreement with the community and won’t be imposed on an area without local consent.”
However the move would fit with the government’s wider approach of slashing red tape and reducing the opportunities for community campaigners to reject infrastructure, in the pursuit of building more houses.
The government currently forecasts that such a nuclear waste storage facility would cost anywhere between £20 billion and a whopping £53 billion.
Labour’s newly-established infrastructure quango, Nista, recently warned that the scheme’s costs risk spiralling out of control, downgrading its rating from ‘amber’ to ‘red’.
