Councillors have given the go-ahead for radioactive waste to be dug up - but have insisted on finding out how it will be disposed of first.

The move was insisted upon by members of the county's environmental planning committee following the revelation in August that 400 tonnes of material containing low levels of radiation had been dumped on a Didcot housing estate.

The Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell has now been given approval to dig up a rugby pitch after small amounts of natural uranium were detected in what was a former RAF site. Councillors have insisted, though, that negotiations over where to dump the waste take place before work begins.

Kirsten Berry, who works in the county's environmental services department, said: "The councillors insisted on that. What happened before is part of the reason we have done that.

"There have been a few hotspots detected quite deep in the pit and they will be removed."

Residents living on Ladygrove estate called for a full inquiry when material which had been dug up from private roads around the Harwell Laboratory site was dumped just yards from Ladygrove Primary School. The latest batch of low-level radioactive waste was discovered in the former RAF pit below a rugby pitch in Harwell.

The pit was originally built in 1940 as a war-time prototype aircraft catapult device but was never used. The concrete-lined pit was then used as the temporary home of materials in transit, which may have contained low level radiation.

Nick Hance, UKAEA spokesman, stressed that the material was safe and added that the radioactive elements would be taken to a specialised site in Drigg, Cumbria.

Story date: Tuesday 26 October

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