St Mary's Church Whicham © Copyright Andrew Hill and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
As reported by Bob Cooper on BBC news 28th February "A postal survey suggested 77% of parishioners opposed an underground nuclear waste facility" in Whicham"
The Parish of Whicham is situated in the remote south west corner of Cumbria, mostly within The Lake District National Park, in the southern part of Cumberland. The communities are located on the narrow coastal plain by the Irish Sea or along the Whicham valley part of which includes the area "in conversation" with Nuclear Waste Services to deliver a Geological Disposal Facility for high level nuclear wastes.
The BBC report continues "Opponents of plans to seal some of the UK’s most lethal nuclear waste underground have called for communities to have more of say. Whicham Parish Council in west Cumbria held a postal survey, in which more than three quarters of those who responded opposed the idea." As a result of the Whicham poll and calls for polls of all Parish Councils within the area "in conversation" about GDF plans Cumberland Council said there was “no reason” for parish councils to conduct ballots.
Of course the less than a handful of people on Cumberland Council (previously Copeland Borough Council) who took the area into this nightmare do not want polls. The full Copeland council never even discussed, never mind had the opportunity to vote on offering up the area as a nuclear sacrifice to an untried untested plan in order to get shot of wastes in order to make more.
Money is being showered on deprived areas within the frame and this is already having the cyncial and designed effect of stifling debate with social media sites and press breathlessly reporting how folk are feeling grovellingly grateful to the nuclear dump GDF largesse for everything from village halls to BMX tracks. This is public money which should be alloted to deprived areas as an unconditional given - not filtered through the prism of nuclear dump GDF plans engendering an overwhelming sense of indebtedness.
Genuine dissent and debate has already been banned entirely or stifled from some local social media sites and news sites owned by nuclear interests.
Good on Whicham for breaking the diktat from Nuclear Waste Services and Cumberland that no one should have a vote (Cumbria has said no already several times) until every area is splashed from head to toe in toxic GDF largesse of £Millions.
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