announced that further work should be focussed on the Bure site (CNE, 2006), effectively ruling out a granite host rock.

9.4.3.4. United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has a long-running nuclear programme – both for energy generation and for defence. Research and development on geological disposal of HLW conducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s met with public opposition and, ultimately, cancellation of the programme in 1981. The approach of the government organisations was essentially paternalistic in this period, the message being that the establishment knew best. There was little effort to involve the public, other than via formal routes such as public inquiries.

Nirex was established in 1982, with responsibility for developing a solution for disposal of LLW and ILW-SL. The site selection procedure was shrouded in secrecy and potential sites were simply announced. Not surprisingly, public opposition was immediate. Selections were also made on clearly political grounds (e.g., proposed sites were ruled out because they lay within constituencies of Members of Parliament).

By the end of the 1980s, confidence-building activities had developed, with Nirex holding public meetings, setting up local offices at sites under consideration and producing newsletters aimed mainly at an unsophisticated readership. However, the site selection process was never fully open and, when it entered its deep site selection programme, Nirex was in a relatively weak position in terms of public trust and credibility.

One key step, in 1987, was a major consultation exercise involving distribution of around 50,000 copies of a discussion document entitled ‘‘The Way Forward’’ (Nirex, 1988). This asked for public comment on a range of issues and, as a consultation exercise, was a considerable success. The major criticism of the exercise was that there was no indication of how – or even if – Nirex would take the views expressed by the public into account. In fact, what evolved into a fairly well-structured communication strategy failed because Nirex did not ultimately listen to the views expressed by the public. One criticism levelled at the exercise was that Nirex should not even carry out such consultation procedures as it would be unable to evaluate the results in an objective manner. Some key findings of the consultation were that:

Repository safety was considered to be the paramount factor, with safe waste transport coming second;

Monitoring and retrieval were considered to be important;

Negative impacts on local communities and industries were a major concern.

The analysis of the consultation process had only just been published when Nirex announced in early 1989 that it intended to investigate two sites – Dounreay and Sellafield (both nuclear communities hosting facilities owned by Nirex shareholders). There was no real evidence of the site selection programme being influenced by the views expressed in the consultation, other than the fact that the local communities near Dounreay and Sellafield had supported investigations in their areas. Consequently, the decision to focus on the two sites was non-transparent.

By 1991, Nirex had decided to focus all its efforts on Sellafield and, without apparent justification, to construct an underground rock characterisation facility (RCF) at the site. Once this had been decided, Nirex’s public communication activities became highly focused, with local offices (but without relocating its head office as Posiva did), mobile

exhibitions in the area and production of information materials. The local authority, that had previously granted permission for boreholes, feared that approval of the RCF would lead directly to a repository and refused planning approval for a shaft. A public inquiry – essentially a confrontational legal procedure – then followed.

Nirex ultimately lost the public inquiry held to decide on the construction of the RCF. Again, the lack of transparency in selecting the site told against them. This led to a complete re-assessment of how to communicate with stakeholders (e.g., Atherton, 2001; House of Lords, 1999; RWMAC, 1999; Consensus Conference on Radioactive Waste Management (Palmer, 1999); Future Foundation, 2000a,b; BNFL National Dialogue and, most recently, the establishment by the British government of CoRWM (DEFRA, 2001)). The ‘‘new’’ Nirex also began to consult widely and seek public opinion, both on the waste issue and on its own activities. Consultation procedures carried out more recently have shown that, today, Nirex is seen much more as a listening organisation. Its stated mission is now ‘‘To provide the UK with safe, environmentally sound and publicly acceptable options for the long-term management of radioactive materials.’’

The significance of the UK experience can be summarised as follows:

In the early days of the UK programme, communication efforts were minimal; once a site or sites had been selected, this was announced to the public via the media. This invariably generated opposition and failure;

Nirex did develop good communication systems but these generally came too late. Also, lessons learned were not logically applied when it came to developing subsequent strategies;

At a high political level, there was repeated government interference in the national siting programmes and virtually no opportunity for Nirex to influence overall disposal policy; this was arguably a problem for the government and not Nirex to solve.

More recently, CoRWM has been doing the running and has now consulted widely in the UK and made its final recommendations on 31st July, 2006, where it stated ‘‘Within the present state of knowledge, CoRWM considers geological disposal to be the best available approach for the long-term management of . . .’’ radwaste (CoRWM, 2006).

9.4.3.5.Comparisons between communication styles in Finland, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom

Of the two general communication patterns considered above, the ‘‘Decide-Announce- Defend’’ approach has been used extensively in the past in France and the UK. However, it has not been particularly successful in its goals and has caused considerable friction between those proposing URLs/RCFs and/or potential repository sites and local people. Indeed, the style has generated considerable suspicion of the nuclear industry and has manifestly not improved the confidence of non-technical groups. By contrast, the ‘‘Review-Decide’’ pattern currently followed in Sweden and Finland is open, with plans for the disposal of waste in the public arena for scrutiny and comment. Although ‘‘Review-Decide’’ procedures are not completely without problems (e.g., the comparative lack of success in France following a change in communication strategy in the 1990s), the process has been much more successful in building confidence and advancing site selection decisions. This openness, particularly in Sweden with its EIA system, has meant that communication is driven by the needs of local, regional and national groups. Local groups, particularly municipalities, are important as they may have the