West Cumbria is the birthplace of the civil nuclear industry, representing the first clean energy revolution in the last century. It has a rich industrial heritage in mining and steel. Yet for all of this history, and the ongoing world leading work in nuclear decommissioning, there is huge untapped potential. There are many occasions when West Cumbria has been a pioneer community, and it should be again.
That is why I am launching my Industrial Plan for West Cumbria. This detailed plan, building on one I published before the 2024 General Election, sets out a roadmap for a prosperous and diverse economy in West Cumbria. One built on the strengths of the nuclear industry but not limited to decommissioning alone.
In the coming weeks I’ll use this column to talk about the main components of the plan and what I’m trying to accomplish. The most important element of it is growing our nuclear industry; our greatest existing economic strength. This means delivering the next phase of nuclear decommissioning work, especially plutonium disposition, in a way that strengthens West Cumbria’s economy. It also means creating the conditions for new nuclear power generation.
Central to this is unlocking land at Moorside where we could site small modular reactors and the industry they could power. That has been my top priority as your MP and I have spent considerable time with ministers, advisers and officials in the energy department, at the Treasury and in Downing Street, as well as building up a constructive partnership at a local level with Cumberland Council, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Sellafield Ltd.
At the beginning I thought our best route was through the process that has been underway via Great British Nuclear since 2023. However, it became clear very quickly that West Cumbria was never seriously in the running as a site for new nuclear under this process, or indeed under the previous government. The Conservatives let NuGen collapse in 2018, rejected our bid for the STEP Fusion programme, actively blocked private nuclear development in 2023 – as the Moorside Letters you can find on my website reveal – and then purchased sites at Oldbury and Wylfa, which demonstrated a clear preference for those two locations.
We also have the future plutonium disposition programme which is an opportunity for lots of future work and investment but this would require the full Moorside site (over 600 acres) to be multipurpose. Therefore, I’m pushing for a large chunk of land at Moorside to be released for nuclear development. With government and local partners supporting this, we could move much more quickly than any government backed process.
I’m pleased to say that at a local level we are united in our goal to bring new nuclear to West Cumbria and we are making headway with government to achieve this. I hope to have more to say on that soon.
Josh MacAlister MP 