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The following is a press release fromMillom and District Against the Nuclear Dump who have set up a new website - https://southcopelandagainstgdf.org.uk/
Press Release: 22nd July 2022
A group of people from Millom and surrounding villages protested on 21st July outside Millom Council Offices. The group are all members of Millom and District Against the Nuclear Dump protest group.
Millom Town Council were holding an extraordinary meeting to agree a statement they plan to put on their website about the role of the Council being on the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership.
The protesters’ complaints include:
council’s lack of opposition to dangerous seismic surveys due to start 1st August
total and complete lack of consultation by the council on anything to do with GDF
lack of representation of their views by the council
council being a member of the so-called ‘Community Partnership’ and what that implies
one-sided information concerning GDF provided by the council
no acknowledgement about the possible effects on the people who live in the area and surrounding villages of having an enormous GDF off Haverigg (if it meets the criteria)
potential loss of businesses, house prices, and a beautiful part of Cumbria - who will want to come to holiday next to Britain’s nuclear dump?
likely disruption for many years: 1,000’s of lorries, dust, noise, blocking roads…
why should Haverigg be the dumping ground for Britain’s nuclear waste?
Leaking ponds at Sellafield are not our problem!
The seismic surveys have been used in the past in connection with gas and oil and wind farms but it is only relatively recent that the amount of damage they cause marine life is coming to the surface.
Jan Bridget, former town councillor who resigned because of the Council’s response to the GDF, said she set up a private Facebook group to give those who oppose the GDF and the seismic surveys a voice and share information as only one side of the situation is being given to the public, i.e. that of the developers.
There are now almost 400 members, and this is just within a month, many have been active delivering 5,000 leaflets around the town and villages. They say responses to the leaflet have been positive with people thanking them for making them aware of the issue. Others have designed flyers, paid for them to be printed, written letters of complaint, attended demonstrations, developed and paid for a website which is being launched today to coincide with the meeting of the town council.
The town council are meeting, in the absence of the mayor who is on holiday, to agree a position statement on the GDF: the mayor had previously prepared a statement which was not made public.
The Council say they remain neutral so that they can access the £1m funding being made available by government to those areas being considered to site the GDF and be part of the decision-making process but, in all honesty, a spokesperson said, it is likely the only people making the decisions are the developers.
The so-called ‘Community Partnership’ made up of local councillors, is tasked with the job of providing information to the public but only one side is being provided.
The community have had no say in anything about being put forward as a site for the GDF, the seismic surveys, or their council joining the South Copeland GDF Community Partnership. Several have written to the Council complaining but are still awaiting responses.
Protestors are hoping their new website: https://southcopelandagainstgdf.org.uk/ will provide much needed information to counter-balance that being supported by the council so that if there is a vote on the GDF, the people of Millom and surrounding areas will have access to as much information as possible in order to decide what they want to do.
The website explains how an individual from Bootle put forward Millom to site the GDF, which will take waste from all over Britain (and possibly further afield). It provides links to government websites, media coverage and identifies possible negative effects of the GDF including blighting of the area, effects on tourism and imagining the area becoming a building site for something as big as the channel tunnel that will take years and years to construct. The whole area will be blighted despite millions being spent trying to attract tourism to this beautiful part of Cumbria with multi-million projects like the ‘iron line.’
Protesters urge the public to visit the website to gain a more balanced view. They urge the council to pull out of the ‘Community Partnership’ and take a genuine neutral stance in a truly democratic and meaningful way, then they can provide information from the developers and the protesters.
For further information: janbridget@outlook.com or Kathryn Miller 07522 993 238.