Guidance

The Siting Process for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF)

Essential information on how to get involved

• From: Nuclear Waste Services
• Published: 19 December 2018
• Last updated: 18 February 2020 — See all updates

Documents

Introduction to Geological Disposal

PDF, 3.54 MB, 38 pages

Community Guidance for England

PDF, 13.9 MB, 49 pages

Site Evaluation - How we will evaluate sites in England

PDF, 19.1 MB, 72 pages

Details

Geological disposal is one of the UK’s largest ever environmental protection projects, which will provide a safe and secure long-term solution for the disposal of higher activity radioactive waste.

We have now started the process to find a site for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) for radioactive waste in the UK.

In support of the Government’s policy announcement, RWM has published information for communities including:

• Introduction to Geological Disposal - An overview into our mission to deal with radioactive waste
• Community Guidance - How we will work with communities
• National Geological Screening for a GDF. This provides a high level summary of the geological information which is relevant to the safety of a GDF.

To help those who may want to enter into discussions with us we have produced two Site Evaluation documents – one for England, and one for Wales.

The Site Evaluation documents have been designed to summarise, in plain and accessible terms, what we will need to consider during the siting process to ensure we can successfully investigate an area and subsequently, construct, operate and close a GDF.

We held a public consultation on how we will evaluate sites in England as part of our work on this important topic. This consultation has informed our final document:

We also carried out a public consultation on how we will evaluate sites in Wales.

The Site Evaluation – How we will evaluate sites in Wales document is also available both in English Language and Welsh Language.

Communities will be right at the heart of the siting process for a GDF and a facility will be built where both a suitable site AND a willing community are selected.

If you want to learn more about GDF and the role of communities in the siting process, please get in touch by emailing gdfenquiries@nda.gov.uk and one of our team will get back to you.

Go to geological disposal homepage

Published 19 December 2018
Last updated 18 February 2020 + show all updates

1. 18 February 2020

   Page updated to include: Site Evaluation documents summary and the final Site Evaluation document.

2. 19 December 2018

   First published.