Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 386)
WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY 2010 (afternoon)
MR KEITH
PARKER, MR
SIMON JAMES,
MR RICHARD
WAITE AND
MR BRUCE
MCKIRDY
Q380 Charles Hendry:
To go back to some of the evidence we had from the NGOs over the
last week or so, they were talking in terms of the lack of consultation
and therefore the constant lack of potential public buy-in, commitment
to some of these projects, I want to tie that in specifically
to the repository issue. I had the opportunity a couple of years
ago to go to Sweden and look at the model repository which had
been built at Östhammar, which seems to me to be an extremely
effective way of engaging the community. Ten thousand people a
year get taken down it, have an idea of how it would work and
seem to be generally comforted having seen the approach. Is that
an approach which you would look to take in this country as well,
of having a model repository first?
Mr Waite: We have considered whether
or not we should have a separate block characterisation facility
or whether we should actually have the actual construction itself
able to be used for that kind of public engagement and we decided
the latter was probably a better course of action, so as the facility
finally finds a site and we start constructing it, open access
to the public, public engagement, building stakeholder confidence
by doing so, as indeed you quite rightly say the Swedes have done
very successfully. We believe you can integrate that type of activity
into the actual facility itself rather than having a stand alone
test facility, if you like, or a practice facility. We do not
actually believe we need that test facility or practice facility
to prove the acceptance of the site, we can actually do that while
we are constructing the actual site, so we would combine both
of those things together would be our current view.
Q381 Charles Hendry:
Also in terms of public confidence, the whole of the decommissioning
programme, which is slightly removed from the NPS, but a lot of
this debate we have had has been about public confidence and carrying
the public with us, where there is a nuclear power station which
has stopped functioning and a new one is now planned to be built
how important is it for people to see decommissioning work being
carried out on the redundant plant in order to give them the confidence
that there is a complete lifecycle approach being taken and that
eventually the land will be turned back into useable land?
Mr Waite: I think the good progress
on decommissioning is essentially in those communities, particularly
when they see the potential job impacts, and so on, and there
are obviously synergies between jobs that may not be required
in an operating station that may be a an NDA station decommissioning
facility where those people could be re-skilled, retrained, recycled
into the new build environment, so on a local socioeconomic basis
it makes sense to join the two together. That can only happen
if we have made good progress on decommissioning, of course.
Q382 John Robertson:
Moving on to the appraisal of sustainability, do you find the
actual appraisal itself in relation to the nuclear NPS satisfactory?
Mr Parker: Yes.
Mr James: Yes, we do. We have
noted some of the comments that have been made in earlier evidence
sessions along the lines that when considering alternatives they
have only considered alternative forms of NPS, and it is certainly
true that, for example, it goes into whether or not that is the
level to which you should take into account the spatial planning
element, i.e. the site specific nature, and looking at those.
But it also looks at the alternatives of energy choices as well
and of, for example, not having nuclear in the mix. That is actually
considered in there, so it is certainly not true to say that other
energy alternatives have not been looked at. As part of that process
and to comply with the Strategic Environmental Assessment directive
you are required to look at all realistic and deliverable alternatives,
and certainly our view is that that has been done. There is an
inexhaustible supply of alternatives you could possibly think
of and there are plenty of those that are not going to be considered
to be realistic or deliverable, so we think the realistic alternatives
have been looked at and therefore it does meet the requirement.
It has also looked at some of the socioeconomic benefits as well,
so we think it is actually a very thorough assessment.
Q383 John Robertson:
Yet the NGOs argued about the AoS that it did not comply with
the requirements of the Strategic Environment Assessment?
Mr James: Our view is that we
think it does. It is required to look at all realistic and deliverable
alternatives and we believe it has done that.
Q384 John Robertson:
So how would you respond to the NGOs then?
Mr Parker: Well, we disagree with
them on that.
Mr James: They are factually wrong
when they say that the energy alternatives have not been looked
at in the assessment. You can plainly see them within the assessment.
They are right in that part of the alternatives that have been
looked at are about alternative forms of NPSs but that is not
to say, just because it has done that, that that is the only thing
it has done. It has looked at energy alternatives also, so we
think they are factually wrong on that.
Q385 John Robertson:
The NGOs felt that the conclusions were of very poor quality.
Is that fair?
Mr James: It depends on their
definition of "poor quality". I mean, they disagreed
with the outcome.
Q386 John Robertson:
Should they have been deeper, should there have been more in it,
or is it just done with the bare minimum of assessment? That was
the reason why they said it died not comply with the SEA.
Mr Parker: I think in general
terms the assessment and amount of discussion and consultation
on nuclear generally since the new build proposals really emerged
in around 2006 it has been really extremely extensive involving
national and local stakeholders. The Government has done a tremendous
amount of work in ensuring that these discussions have taken place
and that they are confident that the public has been taken along
and I think the appraisal of sustainability has been as thorough
as other elements of the overall process in looking at nuclear
and having got to the stage where we are now in a position to
designate a nuclear NPS.
Chairman: Bruce, Richard, Keith and Simon,
thank you very much. I am sorry our proceedings have been interrupted
but we are very grateful and, Richard, you are going to drop us
a note. Thank you.
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