§ Mr. Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby)I present a petition from the people of Grimsby and the surrounding area which sheweth—
That the undersigned are totally and absolutely opposed to any proposal to locate any radioactive waste storage or disposal facility within the County of Humberside and consider that any such facility would relegate the area, designating it as more suitable for dangerous dumping than for development.Wherefore your Petitioners humbly pray that your honourable House do urge the Secretary of State for the Environment in no circumstances to authorise any such dumping or any survey work to assess suitability for the establishment of any nuclear wast dump within the County.There are two main signatures, backed by a further 190 signatures, which complete the 1,200 signatures of a petition which, I presented three weeks ago in similar terms, and heralds the tens of thousands of signatures to come.Humberside will fight this 300-year blight. My constituents cannot see why the Department of the Environment is acting as the political arm of NIREX in trying to force the detritus of a nuclear industry on an area which has no connection with it. My constituents consider that if the Department of the Environment Select Committee to stop rushing into the matter and to begin a basic consideration of whether disposal is necessary, whether this is the best method and whether alternatives can be found, it will betray its responsibility to the environment and by constituents.