THE SEARCH for a location to store higher level radioactive waste is a cause for concern to some, given the existence of coal gas under the West Cumbrian coast.

Allerdale GDF Working Group this week revealed an official Search Area in the hunt for a suitable location for a geological disposal facility.

Search Areas are a boundary within a borough that will be considered in more detail as the working group attempt to find a home, deep underground, for higher level radioactive waste.

Electoral wards included in the Search Area include: Aspatria; Broughton St Bridgets, Dalton, Ellen and Gilcrux, Flimby, Harrington and Salterbeck. The search boundary also includes; Maryport North and South, Moorclose and Mossbay, Seaton and Northside; St John's, St Michael's, Stainburn and Clifton.

The announcement of Search Areas means a step forward for the process, but not everyone is happy about it. Allerdale and Copeland Green Party, as well as environmental group Cumbria Trust have branded the areas included unsafe.

Cumbria Trust point to the British Geological Survey's assessment in 2010 that much of the West Cumbrian coast is unsuitable for geological disposal due to the existence of coal and coal-bed methane.

Jill Perry of Allerdale and Copeland Green Party said: "What they say is that the whole of the coastal strip and quite a way in-land should be excluded because of the coal gas.

"To protect future generations in case they want to go and get the coal and they don't want to be messing with nuclear waste. I think there's going to be quite a lot of objection."

The former Allerdale Borough Council candidate said: "It's very difficult to get people motivated to object to something that's no nebulous until they start talking about specific places."

Geological disposal facilities house radioactive waste from various sectors not just the nuclear industry, including hospitals. However a large amount of the waste that will be housed in GDF is likely to come from Sellafield.

When asked if this means GDF should be in West Cumbria, Jill said: "It's the country's waste because it's from nuclear power stations across the country, it just so happens it lives in West Cumbria at Sellafield because that's where it went for reprocessing. Moving it anywhere else in the country is going to be a nightmare."

She said the answer would be to store nuclear waste in a near surface facility.

A spokesperson for the Allerdale GDF Working Group said: "As part of the work that was carried out under the West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership, the British Geological Survey (BGS) undertook a high-level screening of Allerdale. This was a desk-based study that used existing information to rule out areas that could not host a facility due mostly to the known presence of natural resources, based on pre-determined criteria that formed part of that previous siting process.

"The work resulted in the exclusion of some parts of the area studied at that time. In addition, some volumes of rock were ruled out due to the presence of known aquifers (underground layers of water-bearing rock). However, it was recognised that exploitable aquifer rock volumes do not extend throughout the whole depth range of interest (between 200 and 1,000 metres), and consequently it may be possible to construct a Geological Disposal Facility in suitable rocks below aquifers.

They said: "The presence of natural resources, whilst important to siting, may not automatically exclude an entire area from further consideration and would be evaluated in detail as part of a full site characterisation process."