Site Selection Process for a Geological Disposal Facility

Overview

This consultation was carried out by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. In July 2016, the department merged with the Department for Business and Innovation and Skills to form the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

PLEASE NOTE: Submissions via the online tool have now closed. However, if you sent your response via email to the ‘non-gsi’ address and received a bounce-back notification, please resend your submission to radioactivewaste@decc.gsi.gov.uk.

We are happy to receive responses via email up to 19 December 2013. 

This consultation seeks views on potential amendments to the site selection process for a geological disposal facility (GDF).

UK Government policy is that higher activity radioactive waste will be managed in the long term through geological disposal, coupled with safe and secure interim storage, and ongoing research and development to support its optimised implementation. The 2008 Managing Radioactive Waste Safely White Paper set out a framework for implementing geological disposal, through a site selection process based on the principles of voluntarism and partnership. This consultation document seeks views on proposals which aim to revise and improve the site selection process for a GDF, while maintaining an approach based on voluntarism and partnership.

Why your views matter

This consultation is being launched following a period in which the UK Government considered the lessons that could be learned from the operation of the siting process to date, and a wider ‘Call for Evidence’ which ran in May and June of this year. The consultation seeks views on proposals setting out how aspects of the site selection process for a GDF could be improved, in order to help communities and local authorities engage in it with more confidence, and ultimately help deliver a GDF.

The consultation covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland (and is being issued jointly with the Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive), but not Scotland, which has a different policy for the long-term management of radioactive waste.

We look forward to hearing your views.