Geological Disposal Facility Update.

Romney Marsh Partnership is a quango. It was set up in 2012 to lead the delivery of the Romney Marsh Socio-Economic Plan. As an  unelected quango with no mandate it has been briefed on the Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) (Nuclear Dump). On the 14th Dec 2017 the quango first raised the issue in one of their meetings. The public have no access to these meetings.

The quango makes it clear that it will receive a presentation in March 2018. They were not disappointed. 

On March 29th 2018 the quango, Romney Marsh Partnership, received the following slide show. They also received the following in the agenda for the meeting on the 29th from Cllr David Godfrey, Cabinet Member of Folkestone & Hythe District Council responsible for the project.

The slide show also encouraged them to watch the following video via youtube.

In the video presented by Jessica Ellis, Head of the Geological Disposal Team at the Dept for Business, Energy & Industry Strategy, she discusses the various types of waste to be disposed of.

For those of you who are not aware, there are different categories of nuclear waste. Low-level radioactive waste, such as contaminated gloves, can be disposed of in landfill sites. Higher level waste, which may be dangerously radioactive, is more difficult to dispose of. It can be reprocessed to extract nuclear fuel or encased in glass and left deep underground. The waste comes from Britain’s nuclear energy and bomb-making programmes. It is predicted that the UK is likely to have produced 4.9m tonnes of nuclear waste by 2125.

High level waste would be stored at any Geological Disposal Facility (Nuclear dump) proposed or sanctioned on Romney Marsh. The facility would be 200 to 1,000 metres below the surface. We make clear no decision has been made to site any material on Romney Marsh yet. If perchance this were to happen, then the time line for any GDF would be as follows:

At the last meeting held on the 29th Sept  2018, it is known that David Illsley, Economic Development Officer at Folkestone and Hythe District Council gave an update about the GDF according to Agenda Item 7 

Now as we said no member of the public has access to these meetings. Romney Marsh Partnership are discussing an issue which we believe the people of Romney Marsh should be very much involved at the earliest opportunity. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. High level waste will be stored at the GDF if given the go ahead.

Greenpeace back in 2010 highlighted that “There are ‘serious flaws’ in the advice being given to EU ministers on disposing of nuclear waste deep underground, scientists have concluded.“

Local  authorities have been offered up to £1m per community for areas that constructively engage in offering to take part in the scheme, and a further sum of up to £2.5m where deep borehole investigations take place.

However, contrast this with France which offers around €30m (£26.5m) a year as local support for districts neighbouring the site, an example is Bure, in north-east France. The French also offer €60m in community projects. So why is our Government, the British Government doing things on the cheap. 

We the Shepwayvox team believe the people of Romney Marsh and the district should be allowed to input into any deliberations taken by quango’s, such as Romney Marsh Partnership, the Council and any other body. This whole process needs to be open and transparent and the people of the district need as much information as possible to know what plans any of these bodies are making in our name. 

The Shepwayvox Team – Journalism for the People NOT the Powerful.