I think it's a little naive to think that only a handful of local boroughs should have a say on this. It is not just a Copeland matter. This issue reaches far out across all Cumbria to Scotland and down in to Lancashire and to the Isle of Man. We should all have a say. It's being treated like a local planning issue when in fact if God forbid something went wrong with the place in the next 24,000 years the whole area for hundreds of miles might be devasted. Whether your living 5 miles away or 50 with nuclear it makes no difference.

I'm sure that there's a multi-millionaire in or around the London area with a few thousand hectares he can spare, store it down there.

I think the people of cumbria need to realise that we are not just getting waste from our nuclear industry,we will as reported be storing more"exotic" waste as has previously been reported,this will no doubt be from japan,the only problem is our councils cannot see past their greedy noses,of course it needs stored but if this waste lasts thousands of years surely someone has the foresite to build a state of the art storage area on suitable ground,not just think of a half baked idea,that only sees pound signs in front of it.You say it will bring benefits to the area it will, only to the people who work their no-one else,this needs to be built in a remote area suitable to store it,cumbria is not that place.

how many people in gosforth and beckerment work at sellafield? or retired there having made their fortune at the above? and now complaining they dont want a repository!
plutonium has a half life of 24,000 years!
im sure the above villages and sellafield wont exist then,what a legacy to leave future generations

It is encouraging to know that there is a growing breed of folk in this area who can actually see beyond the end of their noses and don't wear blinkers. Considering the amount of money that has come into the area from Sellafield it is worrying as to why it appears so run down and unkempt. Where have the millions gone?

No more mining industry, no more steelworks, no more Marchon, the West Cumberland Hospital in dire straits - is Sellafield to be jobs at any price. An american company has taken it over - they will be ruthless, they will put profit before people and they certainly dont care about West Cumbria or West Cumbrians. We wont have any kind of say in where or what is dumped here, whatever the protests. If we did I suggest dumping the waste under the builidng where the very questionable Copeland Council reside.

Charlie states: Or the improvements in the West Cumbrian infrastructure (roads etc) that have occured as a result of Sellafield?

Are you serious ?.....the reason why West Cumbria is so lacking when it comes to external investment other than at Sellafield is due to the road network, which is truly appalling post Junction 40 M6.

Is this not something of farce and expensive time-wasting? Where else are they going to put the waste, not to mention the High Level stuff? Even Dounreay waste will be coming down.

Why should we have it? In the beginning the people of West Cumbria were promised free electricity for having the eyesore on our doorsteps, that never happened. Then workers were promised £10,000 worth of share each and that never happened. West Cumbrias unemployment is one of the highest in the country even though we've got this in our backyards. All the yanks want to do is anything at all to profit from their time in the area at all costs and when this area starts to look like a ReadyBrek advert they'll take off. Nobody has our best interests at heart. If Sellafield was any other industry other than the high risk one it is they would've closed it long ago and moved operations elsewhere to save money. It's only because nobody else would put up with it that we have it.

I take it that the 'nowt' that the Ponsonby PC claim to have recieved from the Nuclear Industry does not take into account their share of the billions of pounds of wages paid to Sellafield employees and the money paid to local businesses, hotels etc etc as a result of operations at Sellafield over that past 60 years? Or the improvements in the West Cumbrian infrastructure (roads etc) that have occured as a result of Sellafield?