Last updated 15:57, Wednesday, 26 March 2008

IF we accept the gloomy predictions that Sellafield’s clean-up could lead to the loss of around 10,000 local nuclear jobs in the next 15 years or so – with all the dark implications that carries for employment off-site and among business suppliers – then a startling forecast by government minister John Hutton could strike a hollow tone in these parts.

Yesterday, in a keynote speech to union leaders, Mr Hutton, who is also MP for Barrow, predicted a nuclear bonanza for Britain – in other words an expanding British nuclear power programme which could create 100,000 new jobs in a £20billion economy boost.

The Secretary of State for Business wants to see Britain become a world leader in the development of nuclear power technology.

He even colourfully describes New Nuclear as “the new North Sea Oil”.

All fine and dandy. But what happens in little old Copeland, which is after all the home of Britain’s commercial (and military) nuclear power industry?

We know there are laudable efforts underway to mitigate the predicted employment rundown at Sellafield as a result of the NDA’s decommissioning programme. But don’t we deserve our fair share of the 100,000 new jobs?

To look to the future, we must not forget the past.

What Mr Hutton and his fellow ministers should not be allowed to forget is that this area has had to put up with a lot – and, some would say, with little in return apart, of course, from the well-paid Sellafield jobs.

The case for siting one or more new nuclear reactors is well put, considering that Sellafield had the world’s first commercial nuclear power station (Calder Hall) as well as pioneering (with the AGR, that giant silver golf ball) the country’s advance gas-cooled reactor programme to provide more of the nation’s electricity.

But on the debit side we have also suffered the stigma of Britain’s worst nuclear accident through the Windscale Fire in 1957 – and that, it later emerged, was in the cause of producing enough atomic bombs for Britain to help America compete with Russia in the Cold War weapons race.

People like Tom Tuohy (whose death we sadly report this week) eventually put their own lives at risk in putting our a fire which could have had catastrophic effects for the nation.

So in this brave new climate in which nuclear is seen as politically good and clean then please don’t forget this little corner of the world.

For good or bad, it put nuclear well and truly on the map.