Town halls 'offered bribes' to host dumping sites for nuclear waste

Hilary Benn, launching the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely white paper, said it was 'only fair' to reward councils with support for infrastructure projects in return for taking waste that remains deadly for hundreds of thousands of years.

But critics called the scheme a 'bribe' that would add to the clean-up cost for radioactive by-products, already expected to rise well beyond the official estimate of £72billion over 20 years.

Dounreay nuclear power station in Scotland. Critics say the plans for nuclear burial sites amount to offering "bribes" to communities

'Any community that ultimately hosts a facility will fulfil an essential service to the nation,' Mr Benn said.

'To this end there may be other benefits identified and developed through discussions between the community and Government.'

Critics dismissed the deal. LibDem environment spokesman Steve Webb said: 'The bill for cleaning up our past nuclear waste is soaring astronomically.

'These sweeteners to bribe communities into taking a new waste dump will increase costs further.'

Greenpeace's nuclear campaigner, Nathan Argent, said: 'Nuclear waste is a financial and geological nightmare. This white paper is not about finding a solution for nuclear waste. It's about bribing a community with £1billion of taxpayers' money to bury waste in their back garden.'

Energy Secretary John Hutton pledged yesterday to make the UK the most desirable site for firms seeking to build the next generation of nuclear power plants.

'We must do everything we can to ensure new nuclear power stations are available as soon as possible,' he told a conference in London yesterday. 'Nuclear has proved to be dependable, affordable and safe source of low-carbon energy.'

According to the Government, investment in atomic energy will create at least £20billion and 100,000 jobs. It wants at least ten new reactors to start operations by 2020.

Gordon Brown defended the determination to press ahead, telling a press conference in Downing Street yesterday that some experts believed 1,000 more plants were needed worldwide.

'Expansions of nuclear, like the 700 per cent growth of renewables, will lessen our addiction on oil,' he said.