SUTHERLAND Shire Council says a "people power" campaign by residents might be the only way to stop plans by the nuclear agency to build a nuclear waste storage facility at Lucas Heights.

The mayor, Carol Provan, said she was dismayed with an announcement yesterday by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation that it would apply for a licence to build a nuclear waste facility to take mid-level radioactive waste now being reprocessed in France.

ANSTO said it wants to build an interim facility to store about 13 cubic metres of waste from 2015 until 2020 while a permanent facility is built, because Australia is required to repatriate its waste under the terms of an agreement made when it sent the material overseas.

Despite ANSTO's insistence it will be temporary, Cr Provan said she fears that once it is built and operates without incident it will become a permanent part of the neighbourhood and will prove impossible to move.

"We don't want it in our shire and I don't think anyone else wants it either … it will be easier for the government to say 'just leave it there, it's been safe for all these years'," she said.

"We are investigating what we can do … people power is a good thing, maybe people will start to jump up and down, they have the right to protect their families."

A spokesman for ANSTO said its application to build an 800 metre square warehouse would be for a temporary facility while the federal government resolved where a permanent waste dump should be located.

Craig Kelly, the federal Liberal MP for Hughes, which includes Lucas Heights, said he supported the plans and was confident a permanent facility would be built by 2020, despite Cr Provan's concerns.

The federal government passed legislation earlier this year to set up a single nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. Its preferred site is Muckaty Station, a former cattle station that is now Aboriginal freehold land under control of the Northern Land Council.

However the site's use is strongly opposed by green groups and faces a Federal Court challenge by local Aborigines.

The temporary storage of the waste in Sydney has been welcomed by Greens and anti-nuclear campaigners.

Greens senator Scott Ludlam described it a sensible way to store the waste while a longer-term solution could be found, pointing out that the Lucas Heights site already stored about 15 times as much radioactive waste.