Welcome to the eighth printed newsletter from South Copeland GDF Community Partnership. We’re now almost three years into being a part of the GDF programme.
By the time this newsletter is delivered to you, we will have hopefully granted the full third £1million Community Investment Funding (CIF) allocation to the South Copeland community.
While this funding is being granted, we’re also now thinking about the longer term. If a suitable site was found and this area chosen to host a GDF, what could a community vision look like, so that the Significant Additional Investment package would be of maximum benefit? We’re keen to hear your views in developing this vision – you can read more about this on page 6.
Community Partnership member Bill Amos and I recently attended the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Technical Meeting on Strengthening Local Stakeholder Engagement in Vienna. The five-day event encouraged conversations among representatives of areas involved in nuclear around the world. It was interesting to hear from local communities and organisations operating nuclear facilities and those involved in the earlier initiation, siting, and construction phases of nuclear projects.
There’s a lot that we can learn from international collaboration, and within this newsletter on page 8 we speak to Jamie Matear, Director of Siting Coordination at Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), and look at some of the similarities and differences between the UK and Canada’s GDF programmes. Canada is 21 years into its GDF programme, and two communities there, the Township of Ignace and Municipality of South Bruce, have recently confirmed their willingness to move forward to the next phase of the site selection process to host a deep geological repository.
The UK GDF developer, Nuclear Waste Services, has recently published a video on Copeland’s geology, issued their Property Value Protection Scheme (page 13) and their GDF Annual Report (page 13) – all of which are available to access on our website news section.
The GDF regulators, the Environment Agency (EA) and Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), have also recently published their annual NWS scrutiny report, that summarises our work relating to the geological disposal of radioactive waste during 2023 to 2024 (page 13).
It’s very important to the Community Partnership that the public receive information from a range of reliable sources, so we have collated a list of information sources independent of NWS that you can read on our website if you are interested in learning more (more detail on page 13).
Finally, we are still looking for additional Community Partnership members who can speak for youth, seldom heard, tourism, and agriculture, so if you are interested in joining us in leading this vital conversation with our community, please get in touch.
Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and all the best for 2025.
Ged McGrath
Chair, South Copeland GDF Community Partnership
Download newsletter below
