By John Connell

Last updated at 12:24, Monday, 04 March 2013

Anti-nuclear protesters – jubilant after councillors voted no to a nuclear repository for west Cumbria – will march to Sellafield at the weekend.

Marianne Birkby

Representatives from Radiation Free Lakeland and Three Weeks to Save the Lakes will meet at Seascale on Saturday to demonstrate.

Protesters will put up notices on the beach to warn of “radioactive contamination” in the area before marching the four miles to the gates of Sellafield.

The protesters are due to meet at Seascale car park and will set off along the Cumbria Coastal Way at 10.30am

A petition has gone online written by Kendal councillor John McCreesh asking Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, to Make Cumbria Safe.

Marianne Birkby, of Radiation Free Lakeland, said: “Petitions are great but won’t work on their own. They need to be backed up by action. Direct action is most effective in raising this to public consciousness.

“Please join the protests or if that is not to your taste, send letters to Ed Davey urging him to halt all transports of nuclear waste to Sellafield.

“The site is already ‘an intolerable risk’ and to stop all reprocessing – a practice banned in every country apart from here and France, as the waste it produces is too hot to handle, for us and for future generations.”

Three Weeks to Save The Lakes has also been launched to ensure that nuclear waste is stored safely at Sellafield.

The move by Make Sellafield Safe, Make Cumbria Safe follows the county council’s decision to reject an underground nuclear waste dump.

The demonstration also aims to highlight the need to secure existing waste in situ at Sellafield, improve storage facilities and minimise radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment.

It is also to show solidarity with the people of Fukushima as this weekend marks the second anniversary of the Japanese nuclear disaster.

First published at 11:32, Monday, 04 March 2013
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk