For those who have not yet woken and smelled the coffee. It is not an issue about the benefits that Sellafield has brought to the area historically nor of those it might yet bring, nor of those it promised in the early fifteies that never happened. Of course, people want and need jobs. Nuclear power is clean; it is possible to mass produce it fairly easil;it does not blight the whole of the country only those areas that have to put up with a nuclear station; it is powerful; it is probably less expensive than relying upon hideous unproductive windfarms which benefit nobody but the energy companies and the farmers who either sell their land or lease it.But for goodness sake, it produces a highly toxic, highly poisonous bi-product called low and high level radiation waste about which neither the political classes nor the industry had any idea how they would manage it from the outset seven decades ago. Whether you want or need a job at Sellafield, you can't argue that wasn't particularly clever. So can we please have a sensible objective debate about this without the divisiveness that Jamie Reed and Elaine Woodburn are using as a strategy for further action?

yea sounds like a good idea then you can cut jobs for the council rather than eny one else lose a job hey yous are the ones banging on about saveing the cash point proved !!!!!!!!!!

The speech by Eddie Martin says a lot about a flawed process that MRWS (impartially) ran.
They did not even follow their own mandate to hold a referendum and people have more say on the building of a school or windfarm than we had with the repository.
The Allerdale vote cannot be used as a mandate as they were ruled out of the process and may have voted differently if it were real.
The likelihood of the repository getting a safety case in Cumbria is very very slim so if stage 4 went ahead would have probably been a waste of tax payers money as was the NIREX project.
Our democratically appointed leaders should be ashamed that they now suddenly disagree with a democratic process. They should be treated with the same contempt that they have shown to our democracy.
http://mariannewildart.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/minutes-cabinet-30-1-13.pdf

'Bailey'.
Re-read your letter, more than a few times.
You seem like an open, honest person.
We all have our opinions. I have mine, you have yours. I appreciate yours and I hope you appreciate mine. Difference is good.
Best regards, -----

'Bailey', thankyou for your reflections re my letter, very enlightening, I'm sure you appreciate (?).
Your phraseology is quaint, charnming in a niave way, as is your understanding of the huge problems that we face.
Well done, you and your fellow voters. Well done insomuch that politically dogmatic people, again, such as yourselves, see fit to labouriously vote in, time and time and time again, the same council that have consistently demonstrated a total lack of ambition for our, yes our, town.
Look back 'Bailey'. Look back and count the many initiatives that this council has failed to deliver. Can you and the rest of the 'stuck in the local political rut' voters remember? Possibly? How much money has been paid by the ratepayers of this area (and I take it you do pay rates) to consultants: hundreds of thousands of pounds I beleive. The results? Nothing. No easy way to say 'nothing', however, it has resulted in, nothing. Nothing has materialised from all the expenditure (hundreds of thousand of pounds of our money) that Copeland council has thrown away.
Please understand 'Bailey': this is not a game. This is not about, 'getting one over', this is not about 'banter'. This is about grown-up speak, joined up language. This is about the future of our town that will hopefully have a successful result insomuch that it will become, again, a succesful place for people to visit, to live in: for people to want to visit and as a by-product, spend their money. The knock-on effect will be that moneies will be invested in our town so we, yes the collective 'we', will be able to grow again, and our town, again, will become prosperous.
I suggest you look at the history or our town. What people have struggled for. Look at the positive benefits the local papers have had influence over in the last, for example, 100 years, and even further back.
Research, learn, find out. Then, and only then, will you be able to understand, 'Bailey', what your and my ancestors have had to endure, how they tried to improve thier lot, as we will all try to do over the coming years.
Let us work togther to get our lovely, historic town back to where it should be, back to where it deserves to be, back to where it needs to be.
Love Whitehaven.

Good for Eddie - man of the moment, well done. Does anyone know how we stand up to these councillors who are intent on side lining democracy. Just writing on these forums isn't going to change anything. How do you go about ousting councillors who don't even pretend to represent their electorate who are overwelmingly against Allerdale &Copeland pushing it onto us anyway

It always amazes me as to how Copeland Council lacks any vision. They have beautiful Ennerdale and Wasdale but are only interested in being a nuclear dump !

This debate about the underground dump is now becoming to be a bit embarrassing, it has been voted out, but because Jamie didn't get his way he is still trying to force it forward, what part of democracy does this man not get. I wont object if the store is above ground and armoured against aircraft from 'they who must not be named', but the underground is not an option, the ground is just not fit.

When I go out for a drink in Cockermouth on a Friday night...apart from all the suspect underage...there seems to be a lot of Sellafield work dos (I was on 3 last year)..so if Barry manages to shut down Sellafield, the pubs may struggle for a start. Then all the Sellafield managers will sell up and move on (I know several who choose to live there...especially ones who came originally from outside the county as graduates).
I can't believe some of the ill informed rubbish spouted on here!

I can't believe I have even been dragged into!!!!! Noooooo

Whitehaven is a dump, full of derelict eyesores, first thing that greets you is the horrible pigeon loft that used to be a bus station, depressing place. Copeland let it get that bad, its not up to Allerdale to fix it!