Anti-nuclear campaigners Radiation Free Lakeland have slammed the chairman of the West Cumbria Stakeholders Emergency Planning Committee.

David Moore (pictured) has said that the Sellafield site poses no serious emergency planning issues and is now the 'preferred option' for new build.

In a press release, Radiation Free Lakeland say: “The basis for this statement is hard to fathom.  In 2009 there were two near emergencies at Sellafield, and in the Autumn the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) declared that the risks presented by the site were: “far too high”.

“Despite this the Times reported in November 2009 that the Government is drawing up plans for large spending cuts at Sellafield.

“The Sellafield site is an accident waiting to happen, and the incompetence shown by both the nuclear management and the politicians holding the purse-strings gives no confidence that any site in Cumbria would be safe for a new reactor. 

“Any money available needs to be focussed on minimising the dangers that currently exist.  Such an approach would ensure job security for nuclear workers for a long time into the future – and would also be aimed at avoiding the blight to other industries, such as agriculture and tourism, that would be caused by a contamination incident.

“Following the site nominations all people's energy and outrage has gone into opposing the Kirksanton and Braystones proposals but this has taken attention away from the extraordinarily flawed reasoning of putting new nuclear reactors on the Sellafield site next to the worlds most ferociously radioactive stockpiles of nuclear waste.”

Radiation Free Lakeland was formed in November 2008 following Cumbria County Council’s “expression of interest” in the geological disposal of nuclear waste.  

Supporters are people from all walks of life in Cumbria and further afield whose aims are:  a) to ensure the risks from nuclear waste are minimized and b) that no more nuclear waste is produced.

RFL has provided written evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee on the DECC Consultation on the Nuclear National Policy Statement.

The statement included proposals for ten new nuclear power stations in the UK, four of which are in the North West region, three in west Cumbria (Sellafield, Heysham, Braystones and Kirksanton.

The content of the Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation (EN-6) was precipitated by the 2007 Government White Paper ‘Meeting the Energy Challenge.”   

In their written evidence Radiation Free Lakeland say both the Draft National Policy Statement and the White Paper are written in the gung ho spirit of ‘dodgy dossiers’ with the express aim of hoodwinking the public into justifying the unjustifiable. 

In addition to the written evidence, RFL founder member Marianne Birkby is providing oral evidence on insurance.

She told Getnoticedonline.co.uk: “As a wildlife artist I have to take out at least £5m of public liability insurance every year.  This is needed before I can attend shows in Cumbria as an exhibitor. 

“For example Cumbria’s County Show will have a marquee of exhibitors doing rather benign and joyous things such as charcoal drawing with children, making walking sticks or sticky toffee pudding.  The marquee may have around 60 exhibitors. 

“The full public liability insurance for that marquee in the case of accident or incident such as an easel falling over will be far higher than the nuclear industry is now required to insure itself for in the case of an accident with the High Level Liquid Waste Tanks at Sellafield. 

“The nuclear industry has been given an indemnity by government which allows it to operate with pitiful public liability insurance of £140m or to put it another way the same insurance as 28 artists are required to have in order to attend the County Show. 

“In the case of a serious accident at Sellafield the taxpayer would foot the bill which could run into trillions.  This is an obscenity on a grander scale to taxpayers footing the bill for MP’s duck pond houses.

“The extraordinary thing is that while the nuclear industry is not required to insure itself for radioactive waste liability –the Department of Energy and Climate Change is promoting the building of high burn up fuel reactors that will produce radioactive waste much more hazardous than the existing waste and presumably with the same insurance arrangements.

“An artist – a fairly benign occupation - would not get away with not having adequate insurance arrangements to step inside a show marquee.  While an industry at the very top of the polluting food chain is given special treatment by government- with a potentially unlimited draw on the public purse.”

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