In 2006 a beach near Dounreay power station in Scotland became Britain’s first officially acknowledged radioactive public landscape. The 239th piece of radioactive debris (in this case fragments of plutonium fuel rods) had been found. Signs warning visitors of the radiation dangers have now been erected.

Work at Dounreay stopped in 1998. It is estimated that cleaning up the 135 acre site will take until 2036 and cost £4.5 billion. The high cost (approximately £70 billion) has ruled out the possibility of cleaning up the beaches and sea floor around the plant so locals will just have to live with a radioactive environment for the next five hundred years or so.

Ed.- British Energy, which operates two thirds of the UK’s nuclear power stations, went bankrupt in 2002 and had to be rescued by the UK Government. It continues to run at a loss. In February 2006 it announced that the level of liabilities underwritten by the UK taxpayer had risen from £1 billion to £5.1 billion.