The Rev Ronnie Johnstone pointed out that the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, in its final recommendations for the long-term management of the UK's intermediate-level waste, called for deep disposal underground. CoRWM also stated that communities interested in taking on the facility should volunteer to become a site for the waste.

Mr Johnstone, speaking at a meeting of the Caithness presbytery in Thurso on Tuesday evening, posed a number of questions on the issue. The church and society convener wondered what is meant by a local community; what the incentives are to volunteer; and how a community's opinion is to be explored and established.

"In Caithness, we have about 40 per cent of Scottish waste," said Mr Johnstone. "Do we have a moral responsibility for it, having benefited from 50 years of Dounreay? Does this mean that we should volunteer? If we do so, does this mean we are volunteering to accept waste from elsewhere?

"At present, the Highland Council has a policy of resisting all attempts to import waste to the area. This policy needs to be re-examined.

"CoRWM means that at long last a national repository is to be established. Do we retain our waste, i.e. volunteer, or do we insist our waste is sent elsewhere, forcing another area to volunteer? We are now in the consultation phase so we need to have a genuine and public debate on this issue."

Mr Johnstone, the Thurso West minister, pointed out that presbytery had played its part in helping to resist attempts to dump the hulks of nuclear submarines in the North, but felt there were "particular issues" facing Caithness.

Presbytery backed the report presented by Mr Johnstone and supported the call for a full debate on the issue.

As previously reported, the Highland Council's Caithness area convener, Councillor David Flear, has taken a similar view. He stressed that he was not canvassing support for such a development but believed the matter needed to be addressed.

At the time he said: "Caithness may feel that it has absolutely no interest in a waste facility, or that it may be interested depending on what the package is. I'd make clear this is not me in any way leading on this. I'm not pushing the case for or against – it's just that I feel it's a debate we need to have so the issue does not pass us by."

A referendum held in Caithness a number of years ago was firmly against the area housing a national nuclear waste repository, with 73 per cent of those who responded opposing such a move.

Caithness Against Nuclear Dumping insists local feelings have not changed since then and wants radioactive waste to be kept in secure, long-lasting stores at the sites where it has been produced until an acceptable disposal route becomes available.

A spokesman for the Highland Council stressed yesterday that the local authority's long-established policy is to oppose any nuclear waste coming into the area. "Our view is that our own nuclear waste should be dealt with in retrievable above-ground stores but that no nuclear waste should be brought into the Highlands," he said.

The spokesman also stated that any debate would have to be Highland-wide and not confined to Caithness. "Any change to policy would require to be taken by those people elected to represent the council."

g.calder@nosn.co.uk

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