Staff fear for safety at 'dangerously rundown' nuclear plant with waste stored in 'plastic bottles'

A BBC investigation has revealed safety concerns at the UK’s most hazardous nuclear site.

Panorama discovered that the plant has too few staff to operate safely, and that radioactive materials have been stored for years in degrading plastic bottles.

Sellafield, the nuclear fuel reprocessing and nuclear decommissioning site, which reprocesses and stores nearly all of the nation's nuclear waste, in Cumbria, contains areas that are ‘dangerously rundown’.

Panorama was alerted by a whistle-blower, a former senior manager who expressed concern with the conditions.  He explained that he feared a fire in one of the nuclear waste silos or one of the processing plants, “could generate a plume of radiological waste that will go across Western Europe."