The West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) Partnership was set up to consider the issues that would be involved in taking part in a search to see if there is anywhere in the Allerdale and/or Copeland areas suitable for a repository for higher activity radioactive waste.<br/>Over the last three years we have looked at reports and literature, heard from experts in the field, commissioned independent research and invited reviews by independent experts.

This report is part of the research project International Socio-Technical Challenges for Implementing Geological Disposal: InSOTEC (see www.insotec.eu), funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme.<br/>This report is a contribution to Work Package 1 of the project, which aims to identify the most significant socio-technical challenges related to geological disposal of radioactive waste. To achieve this objective, a comparative analysis of 14 national programmes will be performed.

Answers to questions raised by other contracting parties under the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management were prepared by the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration, the Kr_ko NPP, the Agency for Radwaste Management and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Spatial Planning.