Environmental Politics in the 1980s: the public examination of radioactive waste disposal

Abstract

A focus of concentration in UK environmental politics during the mid 1980s was undoubtedly the proposal by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) to construct the first American-style Pressurised Water Reactor nuclear power station (PWR) at Sizewell in Suffolk (Energy Policy, 1984). This proposal became the subject of the longest running and most expensive public inquiry in British administrative history. The Sizewell B Inquiry, the total cost of which exceeded £25 million, sat for 340 days and heard evidence from 195 witnesses on aspects of power station economics, safety and local environmental concerns. It instituted unusual procedures of investigation, including the appointment, by the Energy Secretary, at the request of the Inspector, Sir Frank Layfield QC, of Counsel to the Inquiry, Me. Henry Brooke QC, to fully and thoroughly examine the evidence put before him (Kemp et al., 1984; Purdue et al., 1984). The Sizewell B Inquiry is especially interesting because of its relationship to the professed energy policy of the present Government (Department of Energy, 1981).