Old science lab articles caused city radiation emergency

Published on Thursday 28 February 2008 21:11

A LANGUAGE school principal told yesterday how he prompted a major alert after he discovered radioactive material while clearing out a cupboard.

Rupert Lezemore, 37, was sorting out IT equipment when he came across the boxes which contained the material.

A section of Chester Street in Edinburgh was cordoned off on Wednesday night as eight fire crews attended the incident at the Regent Language Training school.

The two packages, marked with radiation warning signs, were left behind from the time when the building housed a high school and the substances were thought to have been used in the science laboratory.

There was no contamination outside the containers, and the language school, which took over the property in 1994, was operating as normal yesterday.

Mr Lezemore said: "

I saw the radioactive signs on them and I thought that perhaps this is not something we should have.

"We called the Scottish Environment Protection Agency who took over and looked into the packages.

"Apparently, they contained the sort of thing that you would expect to find in any high school science lab of the time."

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency urged schools and universities to look out any similar "redundant sources" like those that were found in Edinburgh and to report them to the authorities.