NIC/GD/007
https://vimeo.com/1112676463
This exhibit came about following a field trip to Theddlethrorpe, Lincolnshire in June 2022 and a Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) backed Community Partnership public engagement event which took place in the gravelled car park outside Theddlethorpe Village Hall. I also visited the nearby disused Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal which (at the time) was being considered as a potential site for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in which to permanently dispose of the UK’s higher activity radioactive waste.
At this point, the concept of a consent-based process (or indeed any process) for the siting of a GDF sat very uneasily with the local (and wider) Lincolnshire community which had no prior custodial associations with radioactive waste. This was compounded by the fact that the news of local involvement in the GDF siting process was initially leaked to the press before the intended public release date which immediately put both Nuclear Waste Services and the engagement team on the back foot and caused a certain level of initial shock and mistrust amongst the community from the outset. The first round of public community engagement meetings that took place in late 2021 were reportedly tense and fractitious which perhaps explains the presence of private security at the “second round” event I attended. Having not previously been aware of all these issues, this was completely unexpected to me and felt quite strange, even bordering on unsettling, especially with the security man clad in all black and effecively mute in marked contrast to the informally attired engagement team and NWS subject matter experts also present.
In the very early stages of the UK Government-backed GDF siting process, third party discussions with NWS are deliberately kept confidential to protect the identity of the person or persons who make the initial approach. This is perhaps one potentially contentious part of the GDF siting process as these talks may be running in the background for a year or two before they are opened up to wider public engagement. A inevitable by-product of these discussions is that the motives of those behind the initial approach may not necessarily be fully revealed or understood and even the most generously minded may be hard pressed to assume completely altruistic intentions represent the sole driving force.
Theddlethorpe was the 4th GDF Community Partnership to form in the UK. At the time, the other three were all situated in West Cumbria, a region that has played a continuous role in the UK’s nuclear story since the late 1940s, leaving Theddlethorpe very much the odd one out although very much in the mold of a “peripheral community” (Blowers, 2017) which historically has come to define the locations and emergence of nuclear sites in terms of their relatively isolated locations, low centres of population and often struggling economies.
However, although hosting radioactive waste would have been technically new to the county, Lincolnshire is not without prior nuclear connections. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were stationed at a number of RAF bases in the county so it was very much on the nuclear frontline, so to speak.
I returned to Lincolnshire again in September 2024 during another round of NWS GDF Community Partnership engagement events. This time NWS had attempted to pull out all the stops with a full on engagement roadshow, complete with an impressive range of immersive and hands-on exhibits and activities, accompanied by numerous subject matter experts on hand to converse with. Interestingly, the exact same security team I saw in 2022 were also present which seemed to speak volumes, even though they were still not keen to chat.
However, despite the show of optimism from the engagement team, the writing was already seemigly on the wall for the Theddlethorpe Community Partnership. The goalposts had recently shifted towards exploring a potential greenfield site for the above gound GDF facility and the local council had already or were just about to withdraw. On the back of this and with continuing strong local opposition and proportionally low levels of engagement, it seemed likely that the county council would also follow this move in the not too far future.
Following a county council meeting in June 2025, the members voted in favour of withdrawing from the GDF Community Partnership, thus bringing about the end of Lincolnshire’s involvement in the siting proces.
Scary Nuclear Monster is based the transcript of an actual conversation I had at the 2022 public engagement event and the background photograph was taken by Nuclear Waste Services for potential publicity purposes and is of me conversing with one of the NWS engagement officers. Technically, I am not allowed to use this photo so there are potential legal and ethical issues at play here although for the purposes of this exhibit I have redacted both myself and the NWS representative with the exception of their hand...
Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) engagement event, Theddlethorpe Village Hall car park. (Note the private security person in attendence - dressed in black). Photograph taken by Nic Pehkonen (28th June 2022).
Theddlethrope Gas Terminal site. Photograph taken by Nic Pehkonen (28th June 2022).
Theddlethrope Gas Terminal site. Photograph taken by Nic Pehkonen (28th June 2022).
Theddlethrope Gas Terminal site. Photograph taken by Nic Pehkonen (28th June 2022).
Theddlethrope Gas Terminal site. Photograph taken by Nic Pehkonen (28th June 2022).
Information last updated - Mon 25 Aug 2025
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