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PostPosted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 09:37 
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I posted this on PH, but thought it warranted a mention here.

BBC report wrote:
Village's 20mph limit 'illegal'

A 20mph speed limit in a Cumbrian village has been increased after it was found to breach government guidelines.

The speed zone in St Bees, which includes roads near the primary school, was not close enough to traffic calming measures to be legally enforced.

After hearing that meeting Department for Transport requirements would cost about £150,000, councillors agreed to raise the limit to 30mph.

There will be "advisory" 20mph signs put up in some parts of the village.

Under the government's most recent guidelines, which came into effect several months after the speed limit was introduced, 20mph zones must be no more than 164ft (50m) from a traffic calming feature.

The zone outside St Bees Primary School does not meet this requirement, and on Friday the Copeland area committee for the county council approved the rise.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/7942005.stm

It would seem that the Government cannot make up it's mind what it wants.
A 20 mph limit is now illegal, because THEY changed the rules after the limit was imposed.
The real challenge to safety in this village, are workers at Sellafield, who travel to work along an inadequate road, and see St.Bees as a short cut which might save them a few minutes... if they can travel at more than 20mph!
In a week in which the Government propose to limit rural roads to 50 mph for safety reasons, they decide to enforce a change in the rules, and INCREASE the limit in a quiet village... outside the school!!! :banghead:

Soon, there is every likelyhood that Sellafield will be expanded, leading to more traffic - so watch this space - the odds of having an accident might be shortened by this development.
The real cause of course appears to be that spineless COUNTY COUNCILLORS seem lack the self serving attitude of the SCP's and ACPO, to simply dig their heels in and tell the Government that these are simply GUIDELINES, and that they are not binding! :readit:

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 15:59 
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It makes me wonder why Sellafield is expanding when it is now supposed to be defunct. Haven’t they got enough people employed there as it is?

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 20:58 
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I think the government is rapidly starting to realise that despoiling the seaward vista from just about every North Western fell in Cumbria isn't going to solve the country's energy deamnds so they ought to build some more nuclear power stations. Sellafield already has all the necessary infrastructure to support one and, it could be argued, is also able to reprocess the fuel onsite - saving the transporation costs and risks. Besides, it's not like it's going to get any MORE radioactive than it's already going to be for the next few hundred thousand years!


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 20:15 
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I understand the Mad Cats are concerned about the expansion to Sellafield. :popcorn:

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 21:17 
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In Gear wrote:
I understand the Mad Cats are concerned about the expansion to Sellafield. :popcorn:

Aside from the infrastructure which as Mole points out is already on the site, I can see no reason NOT to have generation at Sellafield.
It's all a matter of RISK PERCEPTION.... or in the Mad Cats case, Risk PURRCEPTION! :lol:

I have a garden shed full of nerve agents, which could kill hundreds if they were to find their way into a water supply.

I have household chemicals under my sink capable of causing untold harm if misused.

I driver around in a tin box, STRAPPED in along with several tens of litres of highly inflammable liquid - and think nothing of pulling into a filling station, situated above a HUGE tank of the same flammable liquid, and transferring more to my vehicle - totally untrained!

I eat all manner of products which can also cause harm in the wrong quantities, or if not stored under the right conditions.

If I were a smoker, I could happily puff away on a rolled up paper tube with a cocktail of carcinogens and poisons (with a fire on one end - remember those household chemicals and the filling station)

And yet because the raw materials last for thousands of years, we are led to believe that the risk of exposure and subsequent death from radioactive material is enormous.

Well this week, a Japanese citizen was finally acknowledged to be the luckiest person ALIVE, when it was revealed he had been exposed to the nuclear blasts at both Hiroshima - where he was visiting, AND Nagasaki where he lived.

YES, of course there is a risk - but we live with risk everyday without fear of it... except when it comes to radiation.
Well it IS understandable - many suffer from a huge source of radiation - sunburn from our sun!

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 22:45 
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Earnest,

I worked for the government (as a contractor) on one of their sites. A paper went round about the Chernobyl disaster, I forget the title of the paper and where it came from but it was referring to an old woman and animals living in the areas that had been evacuated. The old woman was still alive and well, even after living off the land around her, and so where the animals. And there was none of this two headed stuff either. It did start to make me wonder what’s going on. And does everyone here know exactly why Sellafield (Windscale) was built?

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 08:47 
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Yep.
Weapons grade plutonium for the atomic bomb, and research into control systems used in generation.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 13:30 
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Ernest Marsh wrote:
Yep.
Weapons grade plutonium for the atomic bomb, and research into control systems used in generation.


It was a bit more than that. I have a video that was released by the BBC about what Sellafield/Windscale was all about. From what I can make out, sometimes the plant used more electricity than it produced, and that they were more interested in pleasing the yanks, thus venturing into experiments that they were uncertain about, and obviously didn't know what the outcome would be. I have the movie and maybe some people would like to watch it who have never seen it before. I’m not sure if it is already on the internet, but I will certainly post it if someone can recommend a decent video posting site. It's actually quite an interesting video.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 18:41 
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Sellafield was never touted as a commercially viable generation site for the reasons outlined.

Even now they have a gas fired generation plant to provide power to the site.
They draw huge amounts of cooling water from the lakes, which they pay for.

There is undue pressure being put on the present site to break even, while at the same time dealing with the legacy of the fire, and previous experiments carried out without the benefit of modern knowledge and planning.

Much of that knowledge came about as a result of the work carried out at Sellafield by the pioneers of nuclear processing and generation.
The anti-nuclear lobby make much of the need to generate power externally - but it is no more strange than the power supplied to F1 cars while they sit on the grid, and the fact that at times in the wet they have less grip than a good family saloon car!

As they say - power is nothing without control - an Sellafield developed those controls at a time when fighting the fire meant going into the core and playing a hose on the burning pile!!

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