Published at 11:05, Thursday, 02 August 2012

IT IS in everyone’s interests that Sellafield is as safe and secure as can be. Safety is always said to be paramount for the country’s most sensitive nuclear installation.

But with the high level of security from armed police, from guard patrols which are already doing vehicle security checks and from an extra new £5million security fence, just how secure does Sellafield have to be?

The government clearly believes it can be made even more secure.

Which is what lies behind a Department of Energy & Climate Change directive for a ban on all cars (5,000 a day, on average) entering and leaving the site.

The logistics to achieve this over the next two years are massive.

It will involve the construction of two big new Sellafield area car parks – at Main Gate and Calder Gate – so that thousands of workers can be collected and driven on to the site by bus.

Sellafield Ltd yesterday confirmed the plan and – in a somewhat guarded statement – says: “We will continue to engage all our stakeholders, including employees, as the project progresses and as the effect on individuals, groups and organisations are fully understood.”

Sellafield used to be a pretty open as well as secure site – 9/11 changed all that, and the popular public Sellafield Sightseer bus tours had to stop.

Counter-terrorism and the need to safeguard one of the world’s biggest stocks of plutonium from getting into the wrong hands are rightly high on the government’s security agenda. But some already think a total car site car ban is ‘way over the top’ – that there are other ways of making life easier for workers and the community.

One is that other plan to shift as many as 2,000 workers to off-site office accommodation, thereby reducing the volume of Sellafield traffic at a stroke. No doubt the government will get its way, but making Sellafield as secure as humanely possible will come at a cost – many millions of pounds in this case.

And as the bill is likely to be another burden on the taxpayer is there not a case for it to be better spent elsewhere – a bit more for the West Cumberland Hospital, perhaps?

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk