By Paul Murphy
BBC Look North Environment Correspondent
This is a significant development in the plans to dispose of nuclear waste on the Lincolnshire coast.
For more than three years, Nuclear Waste Services has been eyeing up the former Theddlethorpe gas terminal as a suitable location for the land-based part of its geological storage facility or GDF.
This facility would receive the nuclear waste before transporting it through tunnels to rocks deep beneath the sea.
But, since NWS announced its plans in 2021, the gas terminal site has attracted other interest from other energy industries.
There are proposals for a carbon capture and storage facility there, the possibility of a gas-fired power station and the site is also being considered as a location to bring electricity cables ashore from North Sea windfarms.
In other words – it’s getting crowded.
The proposed location for the under-sea disposal site remains unchanged.
But NWS is now widening its search for the land-based facility.
Crucially, this search will be confined to two electoral wards – Mablethorpe and Withern and Theddlethorpe.
But NWS will not identify a specific location until next year.
This will inevitably create uncertainty and, for those opposed to the GDF, significant concern.
