nuclear-news

The contamination on the idyllic Southwold beach is feared to be linked to the Sizewell A nuclear plant, which is located on coast not far from the popular seaside spot.

The nuclear factory is in the process of being decommissioned at a cost of £1.2 billion after shutting down ten years ago.

The coastal spot is nicknamed Hampstead-on-Sea because of the all the celebrities who flock there for the holidays.

Chris Evans, Dame Judi Dench and Stephen Fry and other big names regularly visit the beach spot.

Alarmingly, Southwold is the second Suffolk beach to be hit by the contamination in just two months.

In April, scientists monitoring the area around Sizewell revealed that a ‘small amount’ of an particularly dangerous and ‘unusual’ radioactive isotope had been found at Aldeburgh, eighteen miles from Southwold.

The Sizewell plant, which houses two outdated magnox nuclear reactors, is on the coast between the two resorts.

The Environment Agency insisted today that there are ‘no safety or environmental concerns and no risk to members of the public’……

Sizewell A is in the midst of its own investigations over the discovery of Strontium-90, produced by nuclear fission, at Aldeburgh beach – one of five coastal areas monitored by the site…….

Sizewell A power station was shut down on 31 December 2006, with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority placing the contracts at a budgeted cost of £1.2 billion.

On 7 January 2007 a contractor working on the decommissioning of the station noticed water leaking on to the floor of the laundry where he was washing his clothes……..

The water was found to be cooling water from the pond that holds the reactor’s spent nuclear fuel which had dropped more than 1 foot (0.30 m) without activating any of the alarms.

It was feared that up to 40,000 gallons (151,500 litres) of radioactive water had leaked from a 15ft (4.6 m) split in a pipe, with some spilling into the North Sea where it could wash along the Suffolk coast.

Had the exposed irradiated fuel had caught fire, it would have resulted in the release of radiation into the air.

Southwold is popular with holidaymakers – the town’s populations is typically less than 2,000 but this figure swells to almost 10,000 in summer………https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1298270/traces-of-radioactive-material-found-at-seaside-beauty-spot-near-decommissioned-nuclear-site/