NSIP Regime Extended To Nuclear Waste

The government has laid before parliament the Infrastructure Planning (Radioactive Waste Geological Disposal Facilities) Order 2015, which extends the categories of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects ('NSIPs') contained in the Planning Act 2008 to geological disposal facilities to store radioactive nuclear waste. With the arguable exception of commercial and business projects, this is the first new category of NSIPs to be introduced in its own right.

This Order extends the list of NSIPs in section 14 of the Act from (a) to (p) to (a) to (q), and adding a new section 30A that gives the threshold for the new NSIP. The threshold is that it is either a borehole preparing for a radioactive waste facility or the facility itself.