Lincolnshire County Council in the UK has decided to withdraw from the geological disposal facility (GDF) siting process after the council’s new executive, dominated by Reform UK, voted to withdraw from the Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) Community Partnership.
The Partnership in Theddlethorpe had been established by NWS as part of its efforts to identify a GDF site with suitable geology for storing higher activity radioactive waste underground. The GDF siting process cannot continue without the support of the council as the relevant principal local authority.
Theddlethorpe was one of four such community partnerships that the NWS formed in areas where it planned to investigate for potential suitability to host a GDF. These included Mid Copeland, South Copeland and Allerdale in Cumbria and Theddlethorpe in Lincolnshire.
However, NWS ruled out Allerdale in Cumbria as a site for underground radioactive waste storage in September 2023, because of unsuitable geology. A GDF working group that had been established in South Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire, in January 2024 was disbanded a month later.
Lincolnshire County Council leader Sean Matthews said: “To everyone who was worried about these plans, I’m proud to say that you can now rest easy. We’re out of the community partnership and the nuclear nightmare is over. We have listened. We have acted. We have done what we said we would.”
NWS siting and communities director Simon Hughes said: “NWS has to date granted over £2m ($2.7m) to support local community projects in the area and we are pleased to have left a lasting positive legacy for local people. We will now take the immediate steps needed to close the Community Partnership and the communities of Withern and Theddlethorpe, and Mablethorpe will leave the GDF siting process”
The GDF siting process is consent-based and requires NWS to identify both a suitable site and a willing host community. The process will continue to progress as NWS engages with the two Community Partnerships in Mid and South Copeland. NWS has identified surface “areas of focus” on land east of Sellafield, east of Seascale and west of Haverigg.
NWS has said that it will also consider opportunities for more communities to join the siting process. Engineering consultancies WSP and AtkinsRéalis, with Galson Sciences – part of the Egis Group – were jointly appointed as the major permissions delivery partner for the GDF programme in March 2024.
Under a 10-year agreement, the consultancies will carry out environmental assessments, community consultations, and the development consent order and permitting applications required to progress with detailed geological investigations.
