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I wonder how many people knew that had the decision to build a new nuclear power station at Dungeness, the site would have accumulated very high level radioactive waste for the lifetime of the reactors. It would have become a very high level radioactive nuclear waste dump.

Unlike the A & B stations where spent fuel is removed from site on a weekly basis, new reactors store waste on site. The waste would be so hot and high in radioactivity that it could not be touched for over 100 years after the plant had ended its useful life, in total 160 years from its start up date.

This fact was vehemently denied by all bar the Lib Dem Shepway District Councillors at their meeting last Wednesday 25th Nov. A row ensued after Lib Dem Councillor Lynne Beaumont made the claim.

How is it that a large number of councillors denied that radioactive waste would be stored on site when they voted a motion to support the reinstatement of Dungeness to the new build list. I think it is scandalous that that was probably the largest and potentially most dangerous building project they would ever have to decide upon and they were not aware of the most important facts.

I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that at the many nuclear new build presentations held in Shepway British Energy never mentioned anything about this issue.

Barrie Botley, Kent Against a Radioactive Environment (KARE)

Shepway District Councillors are seriously misinformed. The Nuclear National Policy Statement, announced on 9 November, states quite clearly that high-level radioactive waste will be stored at all new nuclear power station sites for around 160 years (i.e. during operations and for 100 years thereafter) (Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation EN-6, 3.8.17). This means that there will 10 high-level radioactive waste dumps around the coast of England (with one in Wales), some of which are crumbling, like Dungeness.

Varrie Blowers,

Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG)