Reference
PL/NIX/Introduction
Title
Introduction
Scope and Content
On 25 October 1983 Patrick Jenkin, Secretary of State for the Environment, announced in the House of Commons that the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive (NIREX) was to investigate two sites in the United Kingdom with a view to storing radioactive waste material . These two sites were an anhydrite mine at Billingham (Cleveland), for low and intermediate level waste, and the C.E.G.B., Elstow (which, despite the name was actually in Wilshamstead just south of the boundary with Elstow), where it was proposed to bury low level waste in shallow trenches in the clay belt.
Opposition was immense. All the county’s local authorities and elected members of all political parties were opposed to the scheme. Most of the county’s Members of Parliament declared their opposition, though the M.P. for North Beds, Trevor Skeet, maintained an open mind on the subject. The county’s local authorities agreed that, as this was a countywide issue, Bedfordshire County Council should lead the campaign of opposition to the proposals. The brunt of the County Council’s effort was borne by the Planning Department, and this series comprises correspondence files formed by and publicity material and publications amassed by that department.
The County Council began by working with a number of organizations. It employed a firm of consultants, E.R.L., to provide technical advice and information, and worked with the Friends of the Earth and Bedfordshire Against Nuclear Dumping - BAND - a locally formed pressure group.
One of the first moves of the campaign was to prevent NIREX contractors entering the site in order to carry out test drilling. An injunction was obtained preventing this, but the government issued a Special Development Order which the County Council could not oppose, allowing NIREX to test drill.
In January 1985 the government announced that plans for the Billingham site had been dropped. It was announced that three other sites would be under investigation and evaluation by NIREX as alternatives to Elstow. These sites were not named until February 1986 and in the interim BCC kept up pressure for them to be announced as soon as possible.
The main thrust of the council’s campaign of opposition was that the proposals were untried and unsafe. In other words, it was not simply a campaign of opposition to a site at Elstow, but opposition to the whole concept of shallow dumping anywhere.
The other three potential sites identified by NIREX were announced in the House on 25 February 1986. These sites were: Bradwell (Essex); South Killingholme (South Humberside); and Fulbeck (Lincolnshire). BCC quickly allied itself with Humberside and Lincolnshire County Councils in what became known as the County Councils Coalition. Essex County Council opted not to join but to fight its own case alone. The Coalition fought a united and integrated campaign, employing Parliamentary Monitoring Services to assist in providing information on events in the House and advice on how to make representations to the House Environment Committee on the issue of shallow dumping of radioactive waste.
Meanwhile, the Local Government Act 1986 had forbidden local authorities from incurring expenditure in order to persuade (as opposed to inform) the public in their area. This meant a curtailing of much of the campaigning hitherto carried out by the Council and concerns as to whether money hitherto spent on the public information campaign might lay the council open to prosecution; in the event this did not happen.
On 1 May 1987 Nicholas Ridley, then Secretary of State for the Environment announced that NIREX had abandoned proposals to store low level radioactive waste in shallow sites. This meant that the anticipated public inquiry into whether Elstow should be the site for a dump was no longer necessary. This effectively marked the end of the campaign, though BCC continued to monitor developments in the field, in case the concept was revived.
Note: the issue was dealt with by the Oxford Clay Sub-Committee of the BCC Environmental Services Committee [reference En.S/Sub 4].
The series consists of five elements:
* correspondence files concerning general matters and specific issues;
* publications & printed material;
* campaign material;
* video and audio tape;
* BAND material.
The series is an excellent example of how a high profile public lobbying campaign was conducted during the 1980s and also has relevance for national policy regarding nuclear programmes.