£132bn bill to make UK nuke sites safe

MAKING Britain’s disused nuclear sites safe will take 120 years and cost taxpayers £132billion, according to an official report.

Decommissioning was an ‘afterthought’ when the industry was established, said Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.

Decades of poor record-keeping about the state and location of hazardous materials had l eft the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority knowing too little about the 17 sites it is responsible for, it adds.

Labour MP Meg Hillier, who chairs the PAC, said: ‘The UK went from leading the world in establishing nuclear power to this sorry saga of a perpetual lack of knowledge.’

Deputy chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown added: ‘ Incredibly, the NDA still doesn’t know even where we’re currently at in terms of state and safety of the UK’s disused nuclear sites.’

The report blames ‘weak government oversight’ and urges the NDA to exploit the technical skills and new technologies of today’s nuclear industry. Sir Geoffrey said it ‘must make a clear break with the incompetence and failures of the past and step up to maximise these assets, and the astronomical sums of taxpayers’ money it has absorbed’.

The cost to current and future taxpayers is estimated at £132billion and more than a century of work will have a significant impact on those who live nearby, added the report. Just to get the sites to the care and maintenance stage of the process will cost up to £8.7 billion.

The PAC said past experience suggests the estimates will soon be out of date, with costs rising even higher. According to the report the NDA admits that it does not fully understand the condition of the sites, which include ten former Magnox power stations.

An NDA spokesman said: ‘We will be looking carefully at the PAC’s recommendations.’

He added: ‘Safety is our priority and we do not accept the committee’s suggestions that we may not understand the safety of our sites.’