Cumbria County Council's cabinet will discuss this week whether to become involved in the group set up to explore the possibility of an underground nuclear waste storage facility in Copeland.

The county council's local committee for Copeland, which is composed of county councillors representing the Copeland area, has asked the local authority's cabinet to consider the prospect of the council joining the "working group" set up to explore the possibility of siting a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in the area.

With Sellafield, the country's key nuclear waste treatment site, being located in Copeland, the GDF issue has generated particular interest in the area.

Set up in November last year, the first of its kind, the Copeland working group was formed to explore the issue without committing to support for a GDF in the area. A second working group was formed in Allerdale in January.

Parish councils in Copeland and Copeland Borough Council have joined Copeland's GDF working group, however the county council's Labour leader, Stewart Young, declined an offer for the authority to be involved.

The Copeland local committee made a resolution to request that the council's cabinet considers joining the working group in January, however shortly after Mr Young stated he had no wish to see the council burdened with being involved in another "charade" on the siting of a GDF in Cumbria.

"This is the third time that they've gone through this process. We have been through it exhaustively", he argued, referring to two previous explorations of the issue which failed first in 1997 and then again in 2013, after the process was taken no further by the county council over a number of issues including a lack of certainty over safety and "community benefits" stemming from the project.

Following Mr Young's comments, a motion was brought to full council last month by Cleator Moor East and Frizington Conservative councillor, Arthur Lamb, calling on Mr Young to "take up the offer" from Radioactive Waste Management, a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, to join the Copeland GDF working group.

"This is not a debate about the merits of a GDF, it's about the council engaging with the process instead of being represented by an empty chair," Mr Lamb argued.

"Wherever a GDF may be eventually sited, this will impact on Cumbria. Eighty per cent of the waste which will be potentially stored in any GDF is currently at Sellafield.

"The transporting of this waste would impact on the infrastructure of the county as a whole, not just west Cumbria.

"It is precisely for this reason that this council needs to be round the table, as the highways authority, making the case for the infrastructure improvements required to facilitate the process."

He said the latest explorations are a "new process" separate to those conducted by Nirex in the 1990s, and the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely programme which the county council pulled out from in 2013.

"The major difference is that this process will happen regardless of the position of this council, and there is nothing the leader of this council can do to stop the process," Mr Lamb added.

"It is far better we engage with the process and represent our residents."

Mr Young responded that the "astonishing" process now underway in Copeland and in Allerdale had been triggered by expressions of interest from a handful of companies and individuals, rather than first identifying "suitable areas" for such an "important" facility.

"This will be a national planning decision," Mr Young said.

The Government made it clear after the county council effectively vetoed going to the next stage, from which it would have not been possible to come out, they would make sure it couldn't happen again."

He said that the "right of withdrawal" in this latest process "simply means the right to stop taking part, it doesn't do anything to stop the process".

Mr Young said that the county council will be a "statutory consultee on any planning application which will be determined by the secretary of state", and it is at this stage that the authority will have the opportunity to make arguments relating to the impact on the county's highways and other matters.

He said the council would not be "standing on the sidelines, as implied by councillor Lamb".

Dr Stephen Haraldsen, Conservative councillor for Yewdale in Carlisle and by profession an academic specialising in the governance of radioactive waste, spoke in support of Mr Lamb's call.

Dr Haraldsen said that "empty chair situations" are to "no one's interest", and challenged Mr Young on his attestation that there is no "right to withdraw" built into the newly launched process on finding a site for a GDF.

"The right to withdraw is much stronger than under MRWS. It's quite clear in this current process that a test of public support will be taken before any shovel hits the ground," Dr Haraldsen said.

"If that test of public support does not reveal support in an area it will simply not go forward," he said adding that the process being conducted by RWM is based on "volunteerism" from communities, along the lines of the approach recently taken in Sweden, which he described as "best practice".

Dr Haraldsen added that the working group stage presents an "opportunity to shape the discussion locally" on the issue.

Eden Lakes Liberal Democrat councillor Neil Hughes added that about £50m had been spent by the Government on the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely programme, something he described as "abortive and deeply unpopular with many sections of the population".

"The current government has revisited the issue and excluded the county council from having any meaningful say," he said.

"It seems straightforward that if one isn't going to be asked in a meaningful way what one's view is, one can spend one's time better."

Mr Hughes did however suggest that a county council officer could attend working group meetings as an "observer", which he said would "depoliticise the issue".

Labour Party Egremont councillor David Southward MBE added that the GDF debate is "potentially a very divisive issue", but added that his own view is "broadly ambivalent, leaning towards supportive".

Mr Southward, a former civil engineer who spent many years in the nuclear industry, said he was "not convinced there's a real drive to make this thing happen" on a GDF.

He suggested that the process has been started so as to allow the Government to "they're pursuing a solution to radioactive waste", adding that he issue "could be addressed much more quickly if there's a will to move it forward".

When Mr Lamb's non-binding motion was taken to a vote, 40 councillors voted in favour, with 18 voting against and four abstaining.

On Thursday, the county council's will consider the proposal from the Copeland local committee, which requests either that the cabinet agrees to a representative of the council joining the Copeland working group, or that the cabinet delegates this decision to the Copeland local committee, to make a final determination.