Annual report 1988-1989

The report for 1988/89 records the development of the British programme which is intended to bring a deep disposal site for low and intermediate level radioactive wastes into commercial operation in the early years of the next century. Following two years of intensive research, design development, analysis of suitable environments, and public discussion by the Company, the Government accepted our recommendation that sites at Sellafield in Cumbria and Dounreay in Caithness should be given priority over others to see if one or the other is suitable on detailed analysis for the siting of a deep repository. Both sites, with others, had shown up well in the sifting of a short-list of possible sites. They had the merit of being in areas where there is already some measure of local support for nuclear operations, and they should be fully evaluated before further consideration of the other possibilities. (author)