Gordon Brown welcomes action on radiation

FORMER prime minister Gordon Brown has welcomed agreement by the Ministry of Defence to join a group investigating radioactive particles found at a Scottish beach.

Brown, Labour MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, has been campaigning for Dalgety Bay to be cleaned since the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) revealed “significant” sources of radiation which could pose a risk to the public had been found at the beach.

More than 200 radioactive particles have been discovered on the site previously and Sepa warned that an area around the foreshore could be designated Radioactive Contaminated Land for public protection.

At a public meeting Brown said: “Everyone knows that for all previous years the surveying of the area has been accepted as an MoD responsibility; now they have to step up to the plate and make sure they remove the dangerous particles and then remedy the environment.”

It is thought the contamination comes from radium-coated instruments from military aircraft which were incinerated and landfilled at the end of the Second World War.