2 months ago
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Hot on the heels of the recent momentous decision taken by Councillors of the East Riding of Yorkshire to withdraw South Holderness as a potential location for a Geological Disposal Facility (a GDF, or nuclear waste dump), the NFLAs’ English Forum Chair has joined local activists, residents, and elected members in, and around, Theddlethorpe to ask why their area is receiving unequal treatment.
In late January, residents in South Holderness, which lies East of Hull and down to Spurn Head, discovered that Nuclear Waste Services had established a Working Group to explore the possibility that the area might be considered as a possible site for a GDF, a deep permanent repository for Britain’s legacy and future high-level radioactive waste.
Theddlethorpe had received similar news in July 2021 when BBC Radio Lincolnshire made a broadcast revealing that the former Conoco gas terminal on the edge of adjoining Mablethorpe was under consideration as a future receiving station for nuclear waste transports.
Other GDF Search Areas in West Cumbria – Mid and South Copeland – have been living with the possibility for decades longer as this is just the latest phase of a long battle by officialdom to foist a nuclear waste dump on the county, though the exact site has yet to be publicly identified.
In South Holderness, people quickly mobilised and the campaign group, South Holderness GDF Action, was formed with at least 1,400 members. Campaigners soon began leafletting local villages and housing estates, picketed NWS consultation events, organised a programme of public meetings, lobbied Councillors, established social media sites, and courted the press.
This mirrored the experience of the East Lincolnshire residents, who formed GOTEC (Guardians of the East Coast) to spearhead their campaign of resistance, and from whom South Holderness colleagues sought invaluable advice, and before them of Millom, where the group Millom against the Nuclear Waste Dump was formed.
In South Holderness, the campaign quickly yielded results; the systematic lobbying by residents of their local Councillors led to elected members at their February meeting becoming convinced of the extent of public opposition and almost unanimously approving a motion to withdraw South Holderness from the process. Local MP Graham Stuart, who is also a minister in the government department responsible for nuclear energy, decided to back the campaign by first calling for a referendum amongst local people, and then for the motion to withdraw to be carried at Full Council.
In East Lincolnshire a similar campaign, led by local activists and elected members, has so far only wrung a grudging concession from Council Leaders to hold a poll on the issue by 2027, in three years’ time. Sadly, in West Cumbria, even obtaining such a minor concession appears seems so far a distant dream.
Now the NFLAs have joined with activists and residents in GOTEC, and with local elected members, in writing to Mr Stuart to seek his assistance in also ending the threat of the GDF to East Lindsey.
Mablethorpe, Sutton-on-Sea, and Theddlethorpe share many similarities with South Holderness. They are communities which are also reliant on tourism and agriculture. They have a demographic profile which also includes a large number of retirees, who have chosen this quiet and picturesque part of the world to relocate after busy working lives, and they both live in seaside communities on the East coast of England which are impacted by coastal erosion and face increasing threats from storm surges and rising sea levels exacerbated by climate change.
In the NFLAs’ view, a GDF in either Theddlethorpe or South Holderness would be disastrous for the local economy and massively disruptive to the lives of residents. Furthermore the future threat of flooding may inundate any local site picked for a GDF waste receiving station.
Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of the NFLAs English Forum, cannot understand why, given the similarities between the two areas, Councillors in Lincolnshire have not also chosen to withdraw from the process:
“Though there are many similarities between South Holderness and Theddlethorpe – demographically, economically, geographically, from the threat posed by climate change, but also in terms of the extent of the opposition by local people to the GDF – so far it seems like a Tale of Two Search Areas.”
In his letter, Councillor asks Mr Stuart to also support the people of East Lindsey by asking his ministerial colleague, Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie, to call on the Leaders of East Lindsey District Council and Lincolnshire County Councils to either jointly exercise their Right to Withdraw ending the process, as the East Riding has done, or convene a public ballot as soon as is practical to determine whether local people want to take the plan forward.
ENDS//… For nore information, contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Notes to Editors
The letter sent by NFLA English Forum Chair Cllr David Blackburn to Mr Stuart reads:
The Rt Hon Graham Stuart
Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero,
Department of Energy Security and Net Zero
29 February 2024
By email to correspondence@energysecurity.gov.uk
Dear Mr. Stuart,
A Tale of Two Search Areas
I am writing to you as Chair of the English Forum of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities. You will have received a similar letter from the members of Guardians of The East Coast and local elected members from East Lindsey (Mablethorpe, Sutton-on-Sea, and Theddlethorpe).
On 21 February, a full meeting of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council voted overwhelmingly to support a motion tabled by local Holderness Councillors seeking the withdrawal of South Holderness from the GDF (Geological Disposal Facility) siting process.
Subsequently, Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) have confirmed that they will ending the process and winding up the Working Group. I understand that you have received a letter from your colleague Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie confirming that no proposal for a GDF will return to South Holderness.
Shortly after the motion was first published, you issued a media release, dated 7 February 2024, in which you expressed support for withdrawal and stated that:
“South Holderness is a special place, and the news that the area was being considered as the site for the UK’s GDF (Geological Disposal Facility) shocked many in our community.
“It is the people of Holderness who should determine what happens in their area and they have made clear their opposition to these plans.”[1]
Mablethorpe, Theddlethorpe, and Sutton-on-Sea in East Lincolnshire are, like South Holderness, ‘special places’; indeed, they share a very similar demographic and a very similar economic profile, they also face similar threats from climate change, and they have also mounted a robust local campaign of opposition to the GDF.
Although these resorts are busy in the holiday season, off-season they are very quiet, and like South Holderness, many people here have chosen this unique and tranquil spot to retire after busy working lives in the expectation that their retirement would never be disturbed by any monstrous and unwanted engineering project.
In your media release, Holderness East Councillor Sean McMaster is quoted as saying:
“Holderness is a beautiful rural, agricultural area, farming has existed here for hundreds of years and hopefully will continue for hundreds more.
“Tourism is also prevalent to our area, and we feel a project of this scale would most certainly have an adverse effect on both.
“Having said that, we have experienced an already creeping industrialisation of the area over the years. Wind Farms, the Biomass plant at Aldborough, Saltend and an extension at the Easington Terminal and now this.”
This description could equally apply to East Lindsey.
Mablethorpe is very much an established seaside town in the English tradition, with a beautiful unspoilt sunny beach, the Saltfleetby and Theddlethorpe Dunes, and the Donna Nook nature reserve. To the south, within the Search Area, also lies the picturesque resort of Sutton-on-Sea. Inland, there is extensive farmland, dotted with historic villages.
In September 2023, the unique beauty and wildlife of this coastline was recognised when this area was designated the Lincolnshire Coronation Coast, the first National Nature Reserve declared to mark the coronation of our new Sovereign, His Majesty King Charles III.
An infographic published by the South and East Lincolnshire Councils’ Partnership provides tourism figures for the East Lindsey district. In 2022, there were almost four and a half million visitors, of which almost two million stayed for at least one night. Tourism is estimated to have generated over £824 million for the local economy and sustained almost 9,000 jobs.[2]
And, referencing the second strand of the local economy – agriculture, who hasn’t heard of the famed potatoes of Lincolnshire, many of which are farmed in this area.
In recent months, this community has also been threatened with ‘creeping industrialisation’, with plans for hydrogen generation and Carbon Capture and Storage, and the potential imposition of many pylons across the countryside.
Like South Holderness, local people were shocked when, in July 2021, BBC Radio Lincolnshire dropped a bombshell – that East Lindsey District Council had been in secret discussions with NWS for two years to bring a GDF to the former Conoco gas terminal site at Theddlethorpe.
Hundreds of residents soon formed a cohesive campaign group to oppose the plan. As in South Holderness, local people soon began leafletting local villages and housing estates, picketed NWS consultation events, organised a programme of public meetings, lobbied Councillors, established social media sites, and courted the press. Their efforts have attracted significant national media attention, and they have also been successful in securing a position on the Community Partnership.
In the local elections held last May, candidates standing on an anti-nuclear dump platform near totally swept the board, taking all the district council seats in the three communities and most of the positions on our three local parish and town councils.
It is the view of the NFLAs that these activities and these electoral results represent a clear expression of the fierce opposition of local voters to their community becoming a nuclear dump.
Theddlethorpe is a wholly unsuitable location for a Geological Disposal Facility. This is a quiet largely rural location. The former gas terminal site was a local aberration when it was employed in a commercial activity, and, at the outset, approval was only given by the planning authority on the understanding that the land would revert to agricultural use once operations ceased.
If approved, the GDF would bring huge and prolonged disruption to the quality of life of residents, particularly over the 10–15-year initial construction period. It would also have a hugely deleterious impact on the natural environment, which is now recognised to be of national importance, and significant economic consequences with the complete devastation of local tourism (for who will want to holiday on a ‘nuclear coast’) and reputational damage to local agricultural products (for who will want to buy vegetables grown on land above a nuclear waste dump).
Like Withernsea, Mablethorpe has had no railway line since the 1960s and there would be immense pressure on the local rural road network to accommodate the traffic of construction materials, spoil, and a transient imported labour force. Local holiday camps would also doubtless be acquired to house some of the workforce engaged on long-term construction tasks displacing tourists and such incomers would place additional stresses on local medical infrastructure.
In addition, like South Holderness, Theddlethorpe is already experiencing coastal erosion and is threatened with storm surges and inundation as climate change increasingly impacts our nation. The former gas terminal site lies only a short distance from the shoreline, and there would be little to stop the floodwaters unless a massive and imposing seawall was constructed.
The NFLAs were of course delighted that the people of South Holderness have now had the threat of a GDF lifted from them in such short order – indeed we are proud that our Secretary played a small part in this process by offering you, other elected members and the South Holderness anti-GDF campaign group related advice – but it is galling, given the clear comparators between South Holderness and Theddlethorpe (demographics, economy, lack of infrastructure, threat from climate change and the level of public hostility), that the treatment the local people in East Lincolnshire have been afforded to date by officialdom has been totally inconsistent.
Indeed, it appears – to misquote Dickens – to be a Tale of Two Search Areas.
The new councillors, reflecting the local populace’s desire to see an end to the threat of the dump, have been active in acting on behalf of their constituents in taking motions to meetings of the district council calling for an early referendum. As a result of this pressure, the Leaders of the East Lindsey District and Lincolnshire County Councils ‘set out their preference for a ‘test of public support’ to take place by 2027’.[3]
But this still means that local people might have to wait for three more years for a resolution!
If the two local councils will not do the decent thing (as Relevant Principal Local Authorities) and follow the lead of their East Riding Council colleagues in exercising the Right to Withdraw, local people and elected members want to see a ballot of public opinion called now.
As a Member of Parliament who has recently endorsed the notion that a local referendum is the only fair mechanism to judge public support or opposition on such an important matter and as a senior minister in the government department with responsibility for nuclear matters – the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero – you are in a unique position to assist them.
I would therefore prevail upon you to speak with your departmental colleague, Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie MP, to urge him to lobby the Conservative Leaders of East Lindsey District and Lincolnshire County Councils to either immediately exercise their Right to Withdraw or call the Test of Public Support as a local referendum as soon as is practicable.
The people of Mablethorpe, Sutton-on-Sea, and Theddlethorpe have already lived for almost three years with this nightmare.
They have had enough of consultation.
They have had enough ‘information’.
They are ready for a resolution now.
Thank you for considering this letter (and that of GOTEC) and in anticipation of your assistance in this matter. Please in the first instance direct any response to our NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Yours Sincerely,
Councillor David Blackburn,
Chair, on behalf of the NFLA England Forum.
1. https://www.grahamstuart.com/news/graham-backs-nuclear-waste-withdrawal
2.
