Nugen's plans for the three-reactor Moorside plant, near Sellafield, have been slammed in a new report.

Radiation Free Lakeland, a nuclear safety campaign group, commissioned the report, published yesterday, through crowd funding.

It claims the proposed reactors are "too great a risk to public health and safety".

The report by Edinburgh Energy and Environment Consultancy, written by Pete Roche, claims the AP1000 reactor design, to be used at Moorside, is "not fit for purpose".

It claims it therefore should be refused a Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) and Statement of Design Acceptability (SDA) by the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency.

Members of Radiation Free Lakeland handed over the report to Cumbria County Council, the National Park Authority, Natural England and Friends of the Lake District.

Marianne Birkby, of Radiation Free Lakeland, said: “Beckermet’s 1,400 acres of greenfields and River Ehen floodplain near Sellafield should be a buffer zone, not a new nuclear sacrifice zone with untried and untested reactors, this report exposes a special kind of insanity and it is called Moorside."

However, a spokesman for NuGen, said: "The UK nuclear regulators have a global reputation for their approach to nuclear safety. Concerns expressed in this report are for the regulators to address through the robust Generic Design Assessment process, through which Westinghouse are currently taking their AP1000 design.

"The regulators produce regular public updates on their scrutiny of all new reactor designs - and invite public comment. Currently the AP1000® is still under review, with an expected date for its design acceptance in 2017."

And he added: "NuGen firmly believes that the AP1000 design offers unequalled safety through its passive safety systems and proven technologies that are based on Westinghouse’s 50-year leadership in safe nuclear energy."

NuGen is currently consulting with the public over its plant that include the plant itself plus associated transport and accommodation projects.

NuGen hopes to get the final go ahead in 2018. Construction is due to start in 2020 and all three reactors on stream by 2026.

Land at Mirehouse in Whitehaven is the largest of three sites planned to house workers building the new Moorside nuclear power plant, with others earmarked for Egremont and land off Coach Road, Whitehaven.