Plans have been approved to expand a radioactive waste disposal facility in Cumbria.

The project involves building two new vaults and expanding a third vault at the UK's Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) near Drigg.

The scheme will create around 120 construction jobs and work is expected to start in 2017.

Preparing the planning application included submitting a detailed Environmental Safety Case covering geology, hydrogeology, waste characterisation, waste processing, engineering of the waste vaults, potential radiological impacts, coastal erosion and engagement with stakeholders.

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Dennis Thompson, Managing Director of LLW Repository Ltd, said: "We are absolutely delighted. After three years of hard work, millions of pounds of investment, utilising dozens of technical and scientific experts, we submitted a substantive technical document that makes the case that it is safe to dispose of low level waste (LLW) at the site.

"We submitted this case to the Environment Agency, and they did the same thing. They spent an additional three years reviewing it in detail. Every calculation, every model, every assumption was re-reviewed by the EA and their experts and they concluded that the case is made. It is safe to dispose of LLW at the LLWR both now and centuries into the future."

Dr Richard Cummings, Head of Science and Engineering at LLWR, added: "We have no greater priority than the safety of people and the environment, which is why such a huge amount of work went in over three years to produce our Environmental Safety Case (ESC), on which our planning application was based."

(LM/CD)