Copeland, home of England’s deepest lake and tallest mountain, situated in the remote corner of England’s North West has for sixty years now also been the home of some of the most advanced science and technology on the planet.

In 1947 the US Senate passed the McMahon Act – a piece of legislation which prohibited the US from sharing nuclear technologies with other countries. This brought to an end the close working relationship of the British and Americans in the nuclear field and in doing so prompted Clement Attlee to create Windscale: a purpose built nuclear complex designed to produce plutonium for the nation’s nuclear deterrent.

In 1956 Calder Hall – the world’s first commercial scale nuclear power station - was opened at a site adjacent to Windscale. In the fullness of time these sites came to be collectively known as Sellafield after the nearby village of the same name.

Generations of West Cumbrians have now been brought up alongside Sellafield. Currently the site employs approximately 11,000 people directly and 5,000 people indirectly through the supply chain and service sectors. This accounts for over 60% of all employment in the borough of Copeland and almost 30% in the neighbouring borough of Allerdale.

Unsurprisingly, attitudes towards the nuclear industry in Copeland and West Cumbria are favourable. It would be easy to characterise this support as simply being due to the economic benefits which the industry brings, but the ties are much deeper than this.

The nuclear industry requires highly skilled jobs; this in turn demands a highly skilled local workforce. Not only this but the industry provides an interface with central government which other industries rarely can. Fundamentally though, West Cumbria has historically pioneered industrial innovation and it is within this context that the nuclear industry must be seen.

Irrespective of differing views on the issue of nuclear weaponry, the historic role of these weapons in protecting the national interest throughout the cold war is now a matter of fact rather than conjecture. Similarly, the historic role of West Cumbria in this success is indisputable.

Sellafield has not produced electricity since the closure of Calder Hall in 2003. The major activity on the site is spent fuel reprocessing, storage and fuel manufacture. The recent arrival of the NDA and the decommissioning of the site’s historic legacies provide immense challenges and opportunities for the area. In the fullness of time, decommissioning will mean job losses – given West Cumbria’s isolation and dependence upon the industry these job losses, if unattended, will result in a social and economic situation that will make the closure of Longbridge, the coal fields and the ship yards look like a tea party. With sensible management by the NDA, effective government involvement and the right contractor running the Sellafield site West Cumbria should become the global centre of nuclear science and technology.

The current Energy Review has been greeted with great enthusiasm in West Cumbria. The prospect of a revitalised nuclear industry is firing the collective imagination and inspiring considered debate about our role within this brave new world.

After decades of derision, misrepresentation and hysteria the nuclear industry may just be on the way back. A new generation of West Cumbrians are now looking forward to playing their role in the new threat now facing not only Britain but the world: not the cold war, but the war against climate change.

West Cumbria’s question for government is now simply this: "How soon can we start?"