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State papers: Plans for nuclear power plant on shores of Lough Neagh shelved over drinking water concerns

​The Northern Ireland government was warned against proposals to build a nuclear power station beside Lough Neagh, archive files show.

Newsletter, By David Young, PA, 28th Dec 2023

The feasibility of the proposal was assessed by the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), a UK government body that was responsible for research on, and development of, nuclear power.

The Stormont government had been assessing the potential for a nuclear power plant in Northern Ireland in the 1950s and the shores of Lough Neagh, the UK and Ireland’s largest freshwater lake, had been identified as a possible location.

However, the AERE advised against this site, raising concern about water contamination in the event of an accident, particularly given that the lough was to be increasingly used as one of the main sources of water for Belfast.

The opinion of the AERE was outlined in a letter from its director John Cockcroft to then prime minister of Northern Ireland Viscount Brookeborough (Basil Brooke) in August 1958.

The document, marked confidential, is in archive files newly released from the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland.

In began by noting that an assessment of the “siting problem” in Northern Ireland had been conducted by a body called the Reactor Location Panel two years earlier, in 1956…………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/state-papers-plans-for-nuclear-power-plant-on-shores-of-lough-neagh-shelved-over-drinking-water-concerns-4458627

December 31, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, water