British Nuclear Fuel's planned mixed oxide plant (Mox) at Sellafield was under threat yesterday after environmental groups launched a legal challenge to overturn the British government's approval for the project.
Lawyers representing Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth filed an application at the High Court seeking a judicial review of the decision to allow work at the £470 million sterling plant to go ahead. The expansion plan was announced by the Environment Secretary, Ms Margaret Beckett, on Wednesday.
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd said the legal proceedings were a matter for comment by the British government; a spokesman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs declined to comment.
Officials from the Department of Public Enterprise, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and legal representatives met in London yesterday to discuss procedural arrangements for arbitration relating to Ireland's planned legal action under the auspices of the OSPAR Convention seeking the plant's closure.
A spokesman for the Department of Public Enterprise said the meeting was planned before this week's decision.
Officials made it clear to the British Department of the Environment that Ireland was "absolutely enraged" by the decision to approve the Mox plant and that it should be reversed immediately.
Mr Phil Michaels, in-house lawyer for Friends of the Earth, told The Irish Times that the judicial review was being sought on the grounds that the economic benefits of the plant had been "distorted" and that there was insufficient evidence potential customers would materialise.
When it approved operations at the Mox plant, Mr Michaels said the British government had never suggested there were any other benefits apart from economic, yet it had "totally ignored" the £470 million construction costs.
If the costs had been taken into consideration in addition to the potential risk to the environment and the terrorism risk, Mr Michaels suggested it would have been impossible to make the economic case.
Casting doubt on Japan's willingness to order nuclear fuel from the plant, he said there was "an enormous amount of anti-Mox feeling in Japan".
The director of Friends of the Earth, Mr Charles Secrett, said the decision was "dangerous, uneconomic and perverse" and he predicted the plant would struggle to find customers. "We will challenge ministers to justify this foolish decision in court."
The executive director of Greenpeace, Mr Stephen Tindale, said: "Tony Blair's obsession with all things nuclear has forced through a crazy decision. BNFL is hoping its main customer for Mox will be Japan, yet a referendum held earlier this year showed the Japanese public doesn't want Mox."