Closing Submissions of the Appellant Contents
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Appellant Ref: DB/CD 8.5.1 LPA Ref: 4/94/9011 DOE Ref: APP/HO900/A/94/247019 UNITED KINGDOM NIREX LIMITED Rock Characterisation Facility Longlands Farm, Gosforth, Cumbria CLOSING SUBMISSIONS OF THE APPELLANT CONTENTS Lionel Read QC Robin Barratt QC Neil Cameron David Wolfe 1 February 1996 1 INTRODUCTION 2 THE PRINCIPAL ISSUES 3 THE APPLICATION 4 THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN 5 LOCAL AMENITY 6 EFFECT ON CHARACTERS AND APPEARANCE OF SURROUNDING LANDSCAPE INCLUDING THE NATIONAL PARK 7 SOCIO ECONOMIC IMPACT 8 HIGHWAYS AND TRAFFIC 9 CONCLUSION OF PART A 10 NATIONAL RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT POLICY 11 BENEFITS 12 GEOLOGY AND HYDROGEOLOGY OF THE SITE 13 THE PRELIMINARY RISK ASSESSMENT 14 ALTERNATIVE SITES 15 CONDITIONS 16 CONCLUSIONS Back to POE Menu Back to Homepage Appellant Ref: DB/CD 8.5.1 LPA Ref: 4/94/9011 DOE Ref: APP/HO900/A/94/247019 UNITED KINGDOM NIREX LIMITED Rock Characterisation Facility Longlands Farm, Gosforth, Cumbria CLOSING SUBMISSIONS OF THE APPELLANT 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 This is an Inquiry into an appeal by UK Nirex Ltd against a refusal by Cumbria County Council to grant planning permission for a Rock Characterisation Facility ("RCF") at Longlands Farm, Gosforth. The purpose of the development is to carry forward the investigations which Nirex began in 1989 into the potentiality of the site as a location for a deep repository for the disposal of intermediate level radioactive waste. The planning application under appeal is not for such a repository. Nirex have made no decision to propose a repository at Sellafield. Their decision whether to propose a repository at this location depends on the information they will obtain from the RCF. Whilst, in Nirex's view, the site holds good promise for a repository, they cannot and do not claim that the RCF will produce information which will lead to a decision to propose a repository at Sellafield. They only claim from their present understanding that the site holds sufficient promise to justify further investigations through an RCF. 1.2 That leads me to my first two fundamental points at the outset of these Closing Submissions. 1.3 First, the grant of planning permission for an RCF and the construction of it would not represent any commitment to an eventual repository at Sellafield, half-way or otherwise, whether on the part of Nirex or of the Secretary of State. The financial cost of the RCF at £195m at 1995(1) prices is substantial. But it is little more than one tenth of the total development and construction costs of £1,820m, sunk and projected, for a repository at Sellafield, if one were built. Sunk costs to the 31 March 1995 amount to £391m. So projected RCF costs represent 13.6% of projected expenditure from the 1 April 1995 to first waste emplacement. Nirex hope to obtain enough information in Phase 1 of the RCF to enable them to make a decision, one way or another, whether to propose a repository at Sellafield. The projected cost of Phase 1 is £119m(2). This represents an even lower proportion of total repository costs or projected expenditure. There is nothing, therefore, in the financial cost of an RCF, or in particular of Phase 1 of it, which commits Nirex to Sellafield as a repository site. 1.4 The grant of planning permission could not, and would not, commit the Secretary of State to grant planning permission for a subsequent repository. A repository development would raise quite different issues which would fall for determination on a planning application for such a development. The Secretary of State would no doubt make that position clear if he were to grant permission for the RCF. 1.5 If Nirex were to propose a repository at Sellafield, and to seek to make a safety case to the Environment Agency at an annual post-closure risk to an individual higher than 10-6, it would be for the Environment Agency to decide whether the sunk costs of the RCF or the projected cost of investigating a site elsewhere were relevant to his determination of an authorisation application. The Secretary of State will know, however, that such sunk or projected costs will not cause the Regulator to accept a safety case outside Government policy or, therefore, to authorise an unsafe repository. The RCF will accordingly not commit the Regulator to any decision on a repository authorisation application. 1.6 Second, this is not an Inquiry into a planning application for a repository or into an application for an authorisation to dispose of radioactive waste under the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 ("RSA"). Neither is it an inquiry to determine the safety of a repository at Sellafield or its environmental effects. The safety of a repository is not a matter for the Secretary of State. It would be for the Environment Agency if an authorisation application for waste disposal were made. The environmental effects of a repository would be before the Secretary of State if a planning application for that development were made. He has promised to call an inquiry into any such application. 1.7 That leads me to my third fundamental point. 1.8 A very substantial amount of time has been spent at this Inquiry, some one half of it, on cross-examination on behalf of the County Council and other Objectors and on evidence-in-chief they have led dealing with the safety issues of a repository. The Inquiry itself was precipitated by the County Council's refusal of planning permission and their belief that the site was, in safety terms, a poor site for a repository. That belief was in its turn based on a report by their consultants, ERM(3). Whether this Inquiry would ever have taken place if the County Council had appreciated that ERM's opinion of a poor site was based on calculations which their own report said should not be relied upon(4), is an interesting, but another, matter. 1.9 The Secretary of State will, therefore, have to consider very seriously the relevance of that cross- examination and that evidence to this RCF planning application. He will in particular have to determine the extent to which, if at all, Nirex have to show the potential of the Sellafield site to support a safety case to the satisfaction of the Regulator. I deal with this point in some detail later in these Closing Submissions. It is enough for me to say now that in my submission the Secretary of State should go no further than to determine whether the Regulator would be bound to refuse an RSA authorisation if Nirex were to apply for one in the future. If that submission is sound - indeed unless it is substantially wrong - much of the cases for the County Council and other Objectors is misconceived, and most of the evidence they have led is irrelevant. 1.10 I make a fourth fundamental point at the outset of these Submissions. 1.11 Nirex do not come to this Inquiry with evidence to support a safety case. They do not have that evidence. Their assessment of post-closure safety of a repository at Sellafield is preliminary and incomplete. They do not have the information which enables them to take this safety assessment to the point necessary for a decision on whether to propose repository development, and would not be able to obtain it from continued investigations from the surface. They need information which they could only obtain from an underground RCF. 1.12 My fifth point relates to the question of alternative sites. 1.13 This is not an Inquiry into an alternative site for a repository. It cannot be turned into such an inquiry by assuming that there are alternative sites for an RCF wherever there is a potential alternative site for a repository. If and when Nirex decide to propose a repository at Sellafield and to make a planning application for such a development, the Secretary of State will have the opportunity to consider any issues of alternative sites for a repository which he then considers relevant to his determination of that planning application. I say more about this subject of alternative sites later in these Closing Submissions. 1.14 Lastly, I would wish clearly to acknowledge the concern that some local people may have, and local authorities on their behalf, about the possibility of a repository at Sellafield. It is an understandable concern: misconceived, but understandable. Their desire to express that concern at this Inquiry, at an early opportunity, is similarly understandable. But most of the time in Part B of this Inquiry has been taken up by the objections of two organisations, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, whose convictions are opposed to Government policy for disposal of ILW waste. 1.15 I turn next to suggest the principal issues which this Appeal raises. Thereafter I divide my Submissions into two parts - A and B - to follow the pattern of the Inquiry. I finish with a short Section on Conditions covering both Parts and a Conclusion. 1.16 For the avoidance of doubt, whenever I refer in these Closing Submissions to the Sellafield site I mean the Longlands Farm potential repository zone. Return to Contents Page Move to Next Section - The Principal Issues REFERENCES (1) PE/NRX/12/S1 Table 4.1 (2) PE/NRX/12/S1 Table 4.2 (3) COR/608 p.104 (4) COR/608 p.20 Appellant Ref: DB/CD 8.5.1 LPA Ref: 4/94/9011 DOE Ref: APP/HO900/A/94/247019 UNITED KINGDOM NIREX LIMITED Rock Characterisation Facility Longlands Farm, Gosforth, Cumbria CLOSING SUBMISSIONS OF THE APPELLANT 2.