CALLS are being made to push forward with finding a new nuclear waste storage site amid fears over growing costs to the taxpayer.

Nuclear Waste Services is in the process of identifying a host site for the UK’s first geological disposal facility (GDF).

There are currently three prospective sites for the facility, with two on the Cumbrian coast– Mid Copeland and South Copeland – and another in Lincolnshire.

The estimated total cost of the project is between £20-£53billion and it is expected to be complete by the 2050s.

Whitehaven town councillor Edwin Dinsdale has voiced his concerns over the costs of the scheme, after attending a West Cumbria Sites Stakeholder Group meeting last month.

He said: “The initial cost was £12billion. This affects every single taxpayer and energy customer in the United Kingdom. This is a national nuclear scandal.”

But David Moore, a member of the Mid Copeland GDF Community Partnership, said the rising costs of the scheme were due to time.

He said: “When it was first talked about it costing £12billion, that was 25 years ago. Over that period, things have increased in cost.

“At this stage, they don’t know where it will be located, which is why there is such a wide range of between £20-£53billion.

“The longer it goes on, the costs can only increase, which is one of the reasons we are saying we need to push along with it now. Every year adds billions to the cost.

“When you look at having an engineered store up to 10 miles off the coast, it’s going to be an expensive process.

“For us here, in west Cumbria, that is currently sitting with the waste, it is really important that it goes to wherever the safest place is.

“What isn’t acceptable is to leave highly active waste sitting in ageing stores at Sellafield.

“The right thing is to move this forward and get the waste to its final resting place – in a repository.”

About 85 per cent of the country’s nuclear waste is currently stored at the Sellafield site.

Cllr Dinsdale said he had asked nuclear representatives if they believed the community had been rewarded sufficiently for the services it provides.

He said: “We are currently going through a cost of living crisis. Rents are rocketing. Our local infrastructure including roads and rail are creaking to breaking point. Our town is looking unloved.

“We, in Whitehaven and west Cumbria, need security for our future.”

Mr Moore said: “I do think a wider conversation needs to be started to see if we can increase the benefits paid to our community.”

A Nuclear Waste Services spokesperson said: “At this early stage, the total whole life cost of the programme, including the design, construction, operation, and closure of a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF), is estimated to be in the region of £20-£53billion.

“Once we have a greater understanding of the specific geology and associated engineering and technical requirements, we will be able to refine our cost estimates.

“A GDF is internationally recognised by governments and scientists as the only viable permanent solution for the safe disposal of higher-activity radioactive waste in the long-term.”

Not everyone is in favour of such a facility, with the Radiation Free Lakeland group campaigning against it. Marianne Birkby of the group has said previously: "Our remit is to oppose GDF anywhere because the science doesn't exist to safely put nuclear waste underground for any length of time."