Radiation Free Lakeland and others are asking: Just whose idea was it to
plan to scrap democracy in order to dump nuclear wastes? Was the bright
idea given to Government by the PR firm Copper Consulting?
Copper Consultancy a PR firm with offices in London, Bristol, Suffolk and
most recently Cumbria, told the Department of Energy and Climate Change
that: “allowing local authorities to determine the outcome of a process
which is designed to deliver a national Government policy may not be the most appropriate route.” This piece of work is a response to Cumbria County Council and the majority of Parish Councils’ saying no to geological disposal of nuclear wastes.
In their blog Copper Consulting go on to say that: “local authorities are
consultees rather than decision makers. The final decision rests with the
Planning Inspectorate and the Secretary of State. A logical conclusion
might therefore be to classify the GDF as an NSIP”
There has always been a suspicion that nuclear is a PR strategy rather than an energy strategy, now we have proof. There is a revolving door between the NDA and Copper Consultancy a PR firm. Ivan Stone who was Executive Director of Copper Consultancy is now the Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Director – of the NDA/RWM (Radioactive Waste Management – a new arm of NDA) Copper Consultancy have also just been awarded the PR job of selling newnuclear build and new nuclear wastes at Moorside to the public.
This is what lawyers Bircham Dyson Bell say about the plan: “Of course
this isn’t a random extension to the regime, the government has in mind
the creation
of one such facility, likely to be in Cumbria.”
Having passed through the House of Lords despite strong opposition which is almost unprecedented for a back room, ‘go through on the nod’ Legal Order, this PR strategy is being turned into awful reality.
Lord Roger Liddle (former special advisor to Tony Blair) said: “As a
democrat and a Cumbria citizen, I cannot support the new
current proposal that the final decision be taken out of Cumbria’s hands
and left to the Secretary of State. In reality, there is no willingness to
engage seriously with the whole local community. Instead, there is only a
determination that in the last resort, the Secretary of State will be able
to do whatever he decides. This is a travesty.”
Campaigners from Radiation Free Lakeland, No Nuke Dumping and others
lobbied MPs within a very short space of a few days to oppose The Order
which was to be passed through the House of Commons as ‘Delegated
Legislation.’ This means that there is a presumption to pass the Order
uncontested in a back room by Parliamentary Committee. Following the
Committee Meeting, in a tweet on the 18th March to campaigners Duncan
Hames MP said “A select group of independently minded Lib Dem and Labour
MPs have objected. This will now be voted on next Wednesday.” This of
course gives no time at all to draw attention to this in the press or
mount a campaign. Local campaigners have few resources or visible help
from mainstream NGOs on what is the most corrupt and frightening betrayal
by government over its dealings with a predermined agenda to “Implement
Geological Disposal.” Cumbria is in the frame despite protestations that
this is a “National” exercise. Only a limited test of “public support”
would be exercised despite protestations by Baroness Verma that this is
“participatory.” Planning consent would be a fig leaf and have no relation
to the kind of scrutiny brought to bear in the Nirex planning inquiry back
in the 1990s in the halcyon days when all the government wanted to bury
was intermediate level wastes. Now the plan is to include the dumping of
high level, heat generating wastes…..along with the dumping of democracy.
Opposition to the Legal Order to make geological disposal a Nationally
Significant Infrastructure Project means that a vote has been forced.
The vote will take place in Parliament on Wednesday 25th March.
PLEASE LOBBY YOUR MP to SAY NO
TWEET * EMAIL * RING
PDF of DECC CONSULTATION – COPPER CONSULTANCY 2013
Rock Solid? A scientific review of geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste
http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/Publications/2010/rock-solid-a-scientific-review/
WIPP the world’s only operational geological disposal facility in New Mexico
http://enenews.com/?s=WIPP
New Nuclear Wastes? Stop Moorside Petition
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-moorside-biggest-nuclear-development-in-europe
RADIATION FREE LAKELAND 
This is what Hilda Murrell had written about the situation just before she died 31 years ago. Her body was found on March 24th. Exact same story except there is even more nuclear waste piled up:
“It also has an inbuilt tendency to dictatorship, of which there was an unpleasant instance this summer, Sir Peter Hirsch, the new director of UKAEA, said on Channel 4 early in June that local authorities must eventually agree to underground sites being used for the disposal of intermediate radioactive nuclear waste. He suspected that “there are ways of doing this by offering them something”. At this the Ordinary Citizen’s blood really does boil. Note the “must”, and the pressure to be applied. By what right does Sir Peter Hirsch dictate to local councils elected by their own people? We have heard about freedom and democracy ad nauseam during the last twelve months, we don’t need to be told, they are the British birthright; but it seems we shall have to start defending them in our backyard.” https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:An_Ordinary_View.pdf
I’m trying to transcribe the document to encourage people to read it but it’s a brilliant witty piece as it is. It has pretty much everything spelled out. The retyping is going too slowly however, but it’s easy to read as is. It’s almost Easter. Time for a resurrection of Hilda Murrell’s work.
That is so prescient ….Hilda was so very right. How incredible the timing
Reblogged this on Mining Awareness Plus and commented:
Hilda Murrell wrote about this very topic of the nuclear industry’s “inbuilt tendency to dictatorship” and the UKAEA saying that “that local authorities must eventually agree to underground sites being used for the disposal of intermediate radioactive nuclear waste”. Her dead body was found 31 years ago today.
To your comment: “There has always been a suspicion that nuclear is a PR strategy rather than an energy strategy, now we have proof.”
Surely this “proof” doesn’t rule out nuclear being an energy strategy, but simply points out that this government has too much reliance on the private sector without a scheme in place to monitor such behaviour. It would be a tragedy if one company’s aims ended up derailing the future of nuclear energy which, as the situation stands, is our only option for our low-carbon base-load energy requirements.
Currently the waste from the reprocessing of nuclear fuels does include highly radioactive elements as only Uranium and Plutonium are removed. However, there is a large body of research currently being done on how to minimise high-level waste through schemes such as using a MOx fuel in nuclear reactors, both recycling Uranium and Plutonium, but also causing the transmutation of highly radioactive elements such as Americium and Curium. (See for example the European project SACSESS)
“low carbon” what a hoot!!
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“The vote will take place in Parliament on Wednesday 25th March.”
Did this vote happen? I can’t find any record of it. I wrote an email to my MP. From her automated reply she appeared to have bunked off early before the official dissolution of Parliament. I don’t expect she was the only one. Democracy strikes again.
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