Region’s Historic Connection With Nuclear Industry

The nuclear industry has a strong historic connection with the North.

The world’s first nuclear power station was built at Calder Hall in Cumbria in the 1950s. Several other plants, and name changes, followed at what is now the Sellafield site.

Other plants followed at Hartlepool and just over the border at Chapelcross and Torness.

Only one other site in the North-East is geologically suited to a nuclear station ( Druridge Bay in Northumberland, where a previous proposal created a decade-long outcry until the Government pulled the plug on the idea in 1989.

Fiona Hall, now Lib Dem MEP for the North-East and a leading campaigner against the proposal, said yesterday: “I think it would be ludicrous to put a station there now given the way the area has been revived.”

Alan Beith, Lib Dem MP for Berwick, said ONE seemed to be second- guessing the energy review.

He said: “A body which is responsible for keeping the North-East ahead of the game does have to take some risks. This is one risk I’d prefer them not to take.”

However, there is support for ONE. Sarah Green, Regional Director of CBI North-East said: “It is important that One NorthEast as our regional development agency is looking to the future and considering the impact on the region of different forms of energy production.”

And Professor Ian Fells at Newcastle University added: “In my view, we are going to need all the nuclear energy we can lay our hands on and this seems quite a forward thinking thing for ONE to do.”