British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) has lodged an application to transform the defunct Trawsfynydd nuclear plant in Snowdonia into an 80m "safe store" for the intermediate-grade waste created as a result of de-commissioning.

But campaigners led by the Council for National Parks have won their battle for a public examination of the scheme as the first decommissioned site inside an area of a national park.

It is the second time the proposals will have been scrutinised - BNFL's original plans to store the waste in modified buildings were rejected by the then Welsh Secretary in 1998.

BNFL's application for Trawsfynydd - officially de-commissioned in 1993 but where work to remove spent fuel continued until 1999 - is in two parts.

Firstly, it wants to reduce the size of the existing buildings and use them to contain radioactive material from the Magnox reactors - one of the earliest forms of nuclear power.

The adapted buildings would be known as "safe stores" for material which would be kept for decades before it was safe enough to handle without the need for sophisticated protection.

No alternative

Secondly, the company wants to build a new structure to contain intermediate grade waste from the former reactors.

Council for National Park's planning expert Ruth Chambers said: "This issue is of national importance for both Wales and the rest of the UK because of its location in the Snowdonia National Park and the huge scale of activity that would follow from the proposals."

"The work would also act as a precedent for other nuclear power stations to be taken out of service and be used to store nuclear waste."

The storage facility would be exclusively for Trawsfynydd waste and BNFL said there is no intention of storing radioactive waste from sites elsewhere.

There is also an assurance that no high-level waste - material radioactive enough to generate heat -would be kept the site.

The firm argues it has no alternative UK site it could use as part of the project to clear the site in 80-100 years and it has earmarked 80m to see through the scheme.

However, the company is said to be concerned that a long-running public inquiry would push up its costs.

But it is not yet clear is the public inquiry will start.

BNFL Magnox has said that for business reasons it wants a result one way or the other by March 2002.

A spokesperson for the assembly said: "The National Assembly took the decision after consulting the planning inspectorate.

"It is not unusual for called-in planning applications to go to public inquiry - 50% of such applications have done so in the last 2 years.

"The timing of the public inquiry is not yet known and will be announced in due course by the planning inspectorate."