Gordon Brown has launched a blistering attack on the Ministry of Defence over its refusal to accept responsibility for radiation on Dalgety Bay beach.
Despite a Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) report pointing the finger firmly at the MoD, long-suffering residents of the Fife town are still waiting for it to own up.
Last week, the MoD said it would consider the report findings, stating it had concerns over the “adequacy and validity” of Sepa’s approach to the study.
Mr Brown, the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, said: “It is beyond belief that the MoD still refuses to accept responsibility for the pollution that could see Dalgety Bay designated as the only radiation contaminated area in the United Kingdom.
“Until a 72-page report was published on Friday, we did not know that the Ministry had dumped at Dalgety Bay beach tonnes of ash from as many as 800 war fighter planes, and that as long ago as 1990 the Ministry had not only admitted they were the polluter contaminating the beach, but had agreed they would help the clean-up.
“The MoD made this clear in a letter to then Scottish Office minister Lord James Douglas Hamilton.
“So why have the Ministry spent the last two years trying to pass the buck naming developers, landowners, Rosyth Naval Base and the sailing club itself as potentially guilty parties?
“All of these groups have been cleared in the report, which lays responsibility solely on the MoD.”
Mr Brown said he would call for a parliamentary debate on the issue.
He said: “In damning evidence which I will lay before Parliament, one witness confirms that incineration of instruments panels from planes was occurring on site in 1946, creating tonnes of ash.
“Another witness documents how between 1953 and 1958 luminising paint was being dumped in the beach area. The truth is that the MoD buried the materials, cannot deny their role, and now have to fund the clean-up, which may cost around £2 million.”
Sepa’s report confirms radium-226 found at the shore originated from paint used to make aircraft dials luminous.
Studies of the coastline suggest incinerated radioactive waste was dumped prior to 1959, when the nearby airbase HMS Merlin was decommissioned.
The Appropriate Persons document states neither Dalgety Bay Sailing Club nor developers involved in building up the new town bear any responsibility for the contamination, which has been released as the headland erodes and was first detected in 1990.