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Radioactive beach clean up work to begin at Dalgety Bay

Getty Images sign on Dalgety Bay beachGetty Images

Work to clean up a Fife beach contaminated with radiation will begin on 17 May - more than a year later than planned.

The stretch of coastline at Dalgety Bay is contaminated with radium from scrapped aircraft instrument panels.

Work to remove the hazardous material was meant to start in April last year.

Sepa announced that final permits had now been issued to allow the Ministry of Defence project to begin.

The environment protection agency said heavy excavating and moving equipment belonging to MoD's contractors was expected to arrive on site from Monday.

The work will include replacing rock armour around the headland and installing a new slipway for the Dalgety Bay Sailing Club.

Dr Paul Dale, radioactive substances manager at Sepa, said: "Communities around Dalgety Bay have, for many years, lived with the environmental legacy of second world war radium contamination on the shore.

"Sepa has been clear in our requirements that remediation will be done once, and it will be done right - providing a permanent and positive resolution.

"Whilst restricting beach access, monitoring and retrieving particles stipulated by Sepa has ensured the public has been protected, this work will deal with the situation once and for all."

MoD Map of Dalgety BayMoD
The red line shows the site boundary of the affected area at Dalgety Bay

Work will be paused in October due to the potential disturbance to wintering birds and will resume in April 2022.

Once remediation has been completed and verified by Sepa, it is expected the public will get unrestricted access to the beach for the first time since 2011.

Delays and disagreements

Thousands of radioactive particles have been found on the shore at Dalgety Bay since 1990, though they pose a low risk to public health.

It is believed they came from instruments in WW2 aircraft that were destroyed and dumped there.

Previous attempts to tackle the contamination had been hampered by disagreement between the MoD, Sepa and Fife Council over who was responsible for the contamination.

The MoD was formally named as the polluter by Sepa, but the work continued to be hampered by delays.