By Alan Irving

Published at 15:46, Wednesday, 17 December 2008

A £50,000 late Christmas present will be on its way to the village of Drigg – thanks to having the country’s only radioactive low-level nuclear waste disposal site on its doorstep.

Drigg and Carleton parish – population around 600 – will receive the windfall every year for the next 60 years because it bears the greatest impact through having the repository as its near neighbour.

It comes out of the massive cash injections Copeland will share as a whole for supporting the long-term operations of the LLWR site on the outskirts of the village.

The formal setting up of The Copeland Benefit Fund now enables the first money to be released. This will be to the specific benefit of Drigg and Carleton.

Seascale councillor David Moore, one of the fund board members, said: “They may not get it in time for Christmas but £50,000 makes for a happy new year and it is well deserved.”

And county councillor Tim Knowles said: “The local community will be living with the waste facility near Drigg for years, so they need to be reaping the rewards for years, too.”

An up-front payment of £5 million, with another £5 million to be added sometime in 2009, has already been put into the pot by the NDA. It is to benefit the whole of Copeland but the NDA says there will be no mad rush to spend it.

On top of the capital sums will come £1.5 million a year to aid suitable community projects although the mechanisms have still to be decided.

NDA spokesman Brian Hough said: “The board administering the fund now needs to sit down and decide how it wishes to maximise the benefits for Copeland.”

Drigg Parish Council chairman John Jennings said: “It’s not just a cheque to spend as we want, it has to adhere to the NDA’s socio-economic policy for the area, so there could be a few difficulties, it means we will have to tick the right boxes. We’ve drawn up a list of projects for the benefit of the parish but before any money can be spent on them from our first £50,000 any scheme we suggest will have to meet with certain objectives. We have been given a governance document to read through and adhere to. Nobody deserves the money more than Drigg, nowhere else has suffered the same impact of hosting such a facility for 50 years and the sheer volume of traffic using it.

“There is also the perceived stigma bearing in mind it has constantly been referred to as the Drigg nuclear dump, I moved here 20-odd years ago and it is a nice place to live but people outside the area might not see it that way. The parish deserves every penny coming its way.”

The NDA confirmed that Drigg/Carleton was set to receive its first £50,000 instalment and governance would have to be agreed on how it was spent to benefit the parish.

“The fund as a whole recognises that Copeland and Cumbria hosts the nation’s low-level waste repository and it’s role in the national strategy for dealing with the waste,” Mr Hough explained.

Community fund chairman Elaine Woodburn, leader of Copeland Council, said: “It’s been a long haul to get the money, it’s the first of its kind in the country, it is well-deserved and can build up into a long-term investment or legacy. It’s not something we will be looking to spend every week we will look at how best to use it for the best benefit of our area.”

Places for two independent members of the fund board will be advertised early in the New Year.

A criteria for inviting community groups to apply for funding will be worked out but nothing is likely to happen before April. This is when Sellafield’s new operators, Nuclear Management Partners, will start its £2.5 million package of West Cumbrian community support .

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